


Five Things Darcy Loves About Working for SHIELD

by teand



Series: Darcy Lewis, Agent of SHIELD [1]
Category: Captain America (2011), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: 5 Things, Background Relationships, Darcy is a bamf, F/M, M/M, Nick Fury is a lying liar who lies, Not Canon Compliant, Possible Movie(s) Spoilers, Slow Build, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-14 12:00:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 49,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teand/pseuds/teand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Bronx <i>was</i> up, the Battery <i>was</i> down and thank freaking Thor that SHIELD provided housing or Darcy suspected she wouldn't have been able to afford to live closer than Vermont.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's A Wonderful Town

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a short, "funny five" things but it Hulked out on me -- which becomes fairly obvious when you realize that it's a "five things" with a proposed six chapters. (edit: seven chapters)(sigh) Because each "thing" is complete in and of itself, while still building an overall story arc, I figure posting chapters as I finish them doesn't quite count as posting a WIP. Quite. Even though it clearly is. Oy.
> 
>  
> 
> Now a podfic by the amazing litra: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1980933

For as long as Darcy could remember, she'd wanted to live in New York City. Her grandmother told her that when she was two, she used to rub against the television whenever the _I Love New York_ commercials ran. Fortunately, Darcy didn't remember that. But she remembered _Trilogy: Past, Present, Future_ , her grandmother's only Frank Sinatra album – a gift from a persistent admirer – and playing _New York, New York_ over and over and over. It was one of the songs on the iPod SHIELD had confiscated and when she finally got her iPod back, while the song was still there – Sinatra and Phish and Cat Power and Jacky Cheung and the Features and Devin Townsend – the Sinatra wasn't the one she'd recorded by setting her laptop and a cheap microphone a careful, measured distance from the old stereo speakers.

And okay, she hadn't responded to SHIELD's oh so subtle _you know too much so we'd like to keep an eye on you_ offer just so she could ream out the suit who'd screwed up her playlist but it was definitely going to be one of the perks of the job.

At least they hadn't found the flash drive with _Dog Day Afternoon_ , _A Bronx Tale_ , and _Shore Leave_. She'd have probably ended up with copies of _Pearl Harbor_ , _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_ , and _Yankee Doodle Dandy_

The Bronx _was_ up, the Battery _was_ down and thank freaking Thor that SHIELD provided housing or Darcy suspected she wouldn't have been able to afford to live closer than Vermont. And, in spite of the housing offer, she still spent two days in "temporary quarters" – a cross between a college dorm and Guantanamo Bay. Fortunately, between filling in an impressive pile of forms while sitting alone in a grey room checking out her reflection in a two way mirror... 

"You guys know that your _personality_ questions have a depressing similarity to eHarmony, right?" The mirror was so bad-cop-show-obvious it had to be part of the test; no way Darcy wasn't talking to it.

...and taking a barrage of physical tests... 

"You know, if you needed to get my heart-rate up," she panted to the surprisingly young looking doctor, forearms supporting her breasts as she started kilometre number five, "I can think of a couple of ways that'd be more fun for both of us."

...she was too busy to really dwell on her cell-like living arrangements.

Halfway through the morning of day three, the same officious dick from HR she'd been dealing with showed up, handed her a set of keys and a lease on a studio apartment in Brooklyn, told her that her things had already been delivered, and she had the rest of the day to settle in.

"Check your email before you come into work tomorrow."

Darcy stared at him in astonishment. "Why would you get me an apartment and then fire me?"

"For your training schedule, Ms. Lewis."

"Right. Sorry."

"And we want to be sure you survived your first night before we issue you a locker." He didn't look like he was joking but Darcy had survived Lewis family Christmases for twenty-four years so screw him. "Your ride is waiting in the garage."

Finding the garage was _definitely_ part of the test.

"Probationary Agent Lewis?" He was tall, skinny, and looked a bit like a young Will Smith. Circa _Fresh Prince._ Cute, but all ears. "I'm Probationary Driver Cadman." He frowned at her white Wall Mart blouse as though he disapproved and Darcy was fine with that, she disapproved too, but work as a Spook dress as a Spook, and while the ticket to New York had come with a dress code, it hadn't come with a clothing allowance. "I'll be taking you to your apartment," he added just before the disapproving pause stretched into _bite me_ territory.

"Don't put yourself out, I could take the subway." She'd been looking forward to taking the subway. She knew someone who planned on doing their cultural anthropology thesis on the New York subway. Of course, she also knew someone who planned on doing their criminal psychology thesis on the New York subway, but after Thor's abs of thunder and a flaming robot destroyer thing, that didn't actually phase her much.

"I expect you'll be taking the subway back to Headquarters, Probationary Agent Lewis, but I've been assigned to drive you today." 

She considered asking if that wouldn't be uncomfortable for him, given the stick up his butt and all, then decided, just this once, to cut him a break. "You know Torchwood was making fun of how obvious big, black SUV's are, right?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Cadman slid a pair of sunglasses on. "Please do up your seat belt."

About two blocks from where they peeled out of the underground garage, Darcy remembered Cadman was a Probationary Driver for SHIELD and his job would involve getting to the scene of the alien invasion/Doombots/mad scientist as quickly as possible. After careening across the desert in Jane's van, Darcy had assumed she'd seen definitive crazy driving. 

She'd assumed wrong.

Priority had been given to clearing the roads after the Chitauri invasion in order to get emergency and construction vehicles to where they were needed and it seemed New York drivers had decided that not filling those roads would be as good as an admission of defeat.

New York traffic was... Darcy considered and discarded several descriptions and settled on: exactly as advertised. Everything the rest of the world believed about New York City traffic was essentially true and could, Darcy realized, be summed up with: there was one hell of a lot of it and the drivers were nuts. As she clung to the handle on the dashboard, attempting to actually keep her ass in contact with the leather seat, she wondered whether they'd started out nuts or had been driven that way by the traffic.

Apparently, in New York, if a driver stayed a car length back from the car in front of them, someone put a car into it. Usually, at least two someones tried. Cadman lost the race for space only once and as that was to a heavyset, older woman with orange hair behind the wheel of a yellow cab, Darcy figured there was no shame in the loss. The cabbie clearly had years of practice on her side. The cabbie's passenger seemed to be breathing into a brown paper bag.

As they pulled up in front of a four story apartment building, sliding sideways into a parking space with inches to spare and getting flipped off by the driver of a furniture delivery van trying for the same spot, Darcy unfastened her seat belt, twisted around, and thrust her fist at Cadman. "That was the best time I've ever had in a car with my clothes on!"

Cadman's eyebrows appeared above the upper edge of his sunglasses. "I don't think it was supposed to be fun."

Darcy let her hand drop. "Dude, if you can't have fun with a license to drive like you're filming a chase scene, you're doing the wrong job."

"I guess..."

"Trust me, Probationary Driver Cadman, fun!"

He shook his head, as though actually enjoying his job had never occurred to him. "I have to get back. I'm being timed."

"Right." Darcy slid out of the car, her backpack barely clearing the door before it slammed shut. "Hey, thanks for the ride!" she yelled, as he made a U-turn around two Buicks and a Saab. It was hard to tell for sure, but there seemed to be a certain joie de vivre in the way he laid rubber at the corner. 

The apartment building was red brick with white stone trim, had been built in 1927 according to the date carved into the lintel of the door, and might have been renovated in the late forties if the stairwell and the halls were any indication. It didn't come with an elevator and her apartment was on the fourth floor. 

On the third floor landing, she switched her backpack to the other shoulder and panted, "If my calves get to big for my brown boots, I'm so taking this up with OSAH. Or the ACLU," she gasped six steps later. "Or the GMDM. Or the SPCA." 

Her key looked like it opened a standard deadbolt but given the humming and the quiet beeping and the vibration, she suspected SHIELD had beefed up the security.

Breathing through her mouth – the tests might have been a delay so agents could infuse the drywall with just the right amount of eau de cabbage – she looked around at the single room with the tiny bathroom and tinier kitchen, at the ancient two burner stove, at the parquet flooring that had been patched in three separate patterns, at the brand new bland beige paint and blander beige furniture – the old paint and furniture no doubt replaced after the last agent in this apartment had messily expired on the premises – and grinned. She was living in New York. 

Brooklyn might not be Manhattan – actually, Manhattan was barely Manhattan at the moment given the damage it had taken from the Chitauri – but it had a certain historical New York verisimilitude she appreciated and while the apartment was tiny, she could afford it on her Probationary Person in Black salary. If only because SHIELD probably owned the building even if the two sets of neighbours she met while returning with basic lunch supplies argued against it. 

Mark, Rob, and Alan lived across the hall in a unit not much larger than hers. Mark said he was an off-Broadway – "Off, _off_ Broadway," Alan had snorted – assistant stage manager, Rob was studying at the New York School of Design, and Alan was a carpenter. 

"He's a set designer," Mark told her.

"I'm doing a kitchen reno in Long Island City." Alan had the kind of scowl that made Darcy think of eye patches and leather coats.

"As a temporary stop-gap until a new show opens."

Eyes rolling, Alan herded the other two back into their apartment, muttering, "I make more than both of them combined. You'll come over for margaritas some time, okay?"

"Absolutely," Darcy answered as the door closed. Three of them in that tiny apartment? It could be a stake-out. Twenty-four hour surveillance of the coffee shop across the street. Margaritas could be code for _you'll come over to help us take down the neighbourhood mad scientist whipping mind control into skinny soy lattes some time, okay?_ But probably not. 

When she turned to pick up the bag of groceries she'd put down to unlock her door, she found an enormous orange cat investigating the ice cream. 

"Hey!"

"His name is Sam. He is not to eat ice cream." 

"I'm not feeding it to him," Darcy informed the old woman in the sky blue track suit and bunny slippers. "He got it open on his own."

"You not stopping him." She tucked hands deformed by arthritis under the cats armpit's and hauled him into the air, resting his weight against the curve of her hip with the ease of long practise. The cat, Sam, licked ice cream off his whiskers and looked as though he was planning world domination. 

"I didn't want to hurt him."

"You new," the old woman muttered. "You learn."

"I didn't want him to hurt me?"

The teeth were clearly fake, but the smile was real. "Better. Sylvia Kriukov. Call me Sylvia. Mrs. Kriukov is mother-in-law."

Sylvia Kriukov had to be easily ninety years old. Maybe a hundred and ninety. Hey, she'd tazed a god. It was possible. "Darcy Lewis. Can I help?"

"No." Sylvia pivoted, the bunny slippers sliding over the worn tile, and shuffled down to an open door at the end of the hall, Sam's tail appearing momentarily by her left hip then her right. "He gets out, you bring to me. He no leave the building. No balls, no brains. Men." 

Retired agent, Darcy decided as the door slammed shut. And super-villian, she added pressing the lid back on her ice cream.

Settled with Chinese takeout – _real_ New York Chinese takeout – she called her grandmother, half listened to a lecture on working for the man, and told her where to send her boxes. Then she called Jane and left a message on her answering machine even though she knew damned well Jane never listened to her answering machine. Eventually, she'd call when Jane had the phone in her hand, Jane would call her, or, most likely, Darcy'd go hunt her down at Stark R &D.

_"Oh God, no, Darcy, I'm not working directly for SHIELD. Tony says that since Eric opened the gate on Stark Tower using Stark technology, he's claiming salvage rights or something. I wasn't really listening. I'm ninety percent certain I can adapt what Eric did under Loki's influence to re-establishing a blah blah science science..."_

Darcy'd listened for another twenty minutes and had understood the prepositions and about half the adjectives. 

_"...and when he gets back here, we're going to have a little talk about how on this world we pick up the phone!"_

That, she'd understood. _"And then have wild godlike sex?"_

_"Hell, yes."_

Bases touched, she shoved the leftover food in the tiny fridge, hung her messenger bag across her body, and headed out. By five, she'd hit Google's top ten vintage clothing stores in NYC – scoring work clothes that didn't make her want to spork her eyes out every time she passed a mirror – as well the first four listed vintage record stores. The record stores were all in Brooklyn but the clothing stores put miles on her brand new Metro card. 

The subway was disappointingly tame. 

Laden down with bags, she only just barely managed to get the building's door open. Blocking Sam's escape with her leg left her tipping a little...

"Hang on, I've got him."

The owner of the voice was about six two, blond hair, blue eyes, wearing a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up – white undershirt visible at the open collar – tucked into pressed khakis. Given that he dressed like her Uncle Stan – who was pushing seventy – Darcy quickly ticked the "No girlfriend." and "Not gay." boxes. Sam seemed to both know and approve of him though, butting his enormous orange head into a deliciously broad chest. Still, Sam was an ice cream thief. Not exactly a great judge of character.

"You're new in the building."

It wasn't a question, although Darcy heard questions under and around it. His inflections were weirdly formal so, unable to get a handle on the subtext, she merely grinned and said, "I'm new in New York."

They fell into step on the stairs, tall and blond shortening his stride to stay beside her.

Oh what the hell. He didn't seem like a bad guy and Sam _did_ have good taste in ice cream.

"Darcy."

He smiled. "Steve."

"So what about you?"

He looked confused. "What about me?"

"I'm new in New York, and you're...?"

"Not." He grinned. "Born and raised in Brooklyn." The grin faded. "But I was gone for a while. I just moved back last month."

Darcy had been warned about New York men. As though they were more likely to be lying, cheating S.O.Bs just by virtue of living in New York. But basic statistics said that if the population density meant the proportion of bastards would be higher than in other parts of the country the proportion of guys it might be worth getting to know would be higher too. And, Sam's opinion aside, Steve looked like a decent guy. Decent and kind of sad. "Did it change much while you were gone?"

"You have no idea."

Decent, sad, and a little twitchy, Darcy amended watching a muscle jump in his jaw.

A strangely heavy silence fell and Darcy, realizing Steve would be climbing all the way to the fourth floor with her to return Sam, tried not to breathe like a second rate porn star.

"So what about you?" Steve asked as they hit the third floor landing. "You're here for..."

"Work," Darcy gasped. "In my own defence," she added when she managed enough air for further words, "I've been vigorously shopping."

"I can tell."

"You can't score... these amazing finds... in New Mexico."

"Really?"

"Now... you're patronizing... me."

And the grin returned. Darcy figured seeing it again was worth her imminent demise. "Sorry."

Before he could ask what she did, before she could figure out what lies to tell him – there were options listed on one of the forms she'd filled out instructing her to pick one and stick to it – Sylvia Kriukov appeared at the top of the stairs muttering in...

"Russian," Darcy decided as Steve handed over the cat and all four of them moved out into the hall. "Took two years of it," she explained. "Temporary linguists major. Don't speak it, thus the temporary, but I recognize it."

"Girl is out of shape," Sylvia snorted. "She should go run with you in mornings."

"You run in the morning?" Darcy rolled her eyes. "Of course you do," she continued before Steve could answer. "You know what I do in the morning?"

Steve raised a blond brow. 

"I sleep."

Another grin. She could bask in his grin. "Of course you do."

"And you know what I'm going to do now? I'm going to sit down before I fall down. Nice try, Sam." She rubbed the cat between the ears, turned to tall and blond and spent a moment wanting to rub him between the ears before saying, "Nice to meet you, Steve."

"Nice to meet you, Darcy." He took two steps back down the stairs, paused, and said, "I'm in 311, if you need anything."

"Dude, don't tell me your apartment number. This is New York. I could be a serial killer for all you know!"

And one more grin. "I think I could handle you."

Sylvia muttered something new as he disappeared down the stairs. 

"You just said he can handle me – where me means you – any time, didn't you?"

"Old," Sylvia snickered. "Not dead."

Darcy's first night in her first New York apartment involved sirens and something smacking into her window and more sirens and an impressively loud argument in an Asian language – although Darcy had no idea of which one or where exactly the argument was happening – and still more sirens. She put her earbuds in, pulled up her _I'm going to kick New York's ass_ playlist and fell asleep smiling.

The next morning, she showered, checked her email, said several words Sam would have approved of – her grandmother said cats swore like sailors – and packed her plain grey SHEILD issue shorts, t-shirt, sport bra, and shoes into her backpack. Apparently even those SHIELD personnel destined for desk jobs had to pass minimum physical requirements. Darcy supposed that made sense. In the case of another alien invasion, she'd like the option of running away very fast.

Sorry. Leading civilians to safety. Very fast.

She put on her new/used navy and black tweed trousers, an actual vintage pale blue silk scoop neck blouse – from the days when women had boobs and blouses had fabric – and a 1930's style repro black cardigan. Her Docs weren't exactly office wear but they were polished and her office fought aliens so all arguments were invalid. A quick twist put her hair up on top of her head and after swiping a little Coral Sin over her lips, she dropped her makeup bag into her backpack. No point in painting and polishing if they were going to make her sweat.

Sighing, she stared at her reflection in the slightly cloudy full length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. "Well, don't I look like I'm going to work for the man."

At least the man had an eyepatch and a really kickass leather coat. She'd only seen Director Fury from a distance but she approved of the director of a secret government ass-kicking organization making an effort to actually look like the director of a secret government ass-kicking organization.

One of the cliches she'd heard about New York was that there was a coffee shop on every corner. This, Darcy discovered was not exactly true as at the closest intersection to home her apartment building took up one corner and the entrance to a small park took up one corner ,leaving only two corners for coffee shops. Darcy crossed to the nearer, got jostled around in the crowd of morning commuters until she could pass over her thermal mug for ten ounces of black coffee and two shots of espresso and jostle her way back out to the sidewalk...

...where an explosion snapped her head up in time to see a rain of burning debris heading for the ground. To her astonishment, most of the people around her merely moved in closer to the buildings and continued on their way to work. The remainder traced the debris' trajectory with their cellphone cameras, and two boys made a loud twenty dollar bet that the Chevy van would get flattened.

It definitely got dented. Before the largest piece of debris could drop below the treetops, a flaming figure swooped down and knocked it into the park. 

"Darcy! Are you all right?" Motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm, Steve ran across the street toward her and Darcy realized she was stupidly standing right out in the open, staring up into the sky like the newbie New Yorker she was.

"I'm fine. Nothing came close. Were you..."

Which was when the flaming figure, who could only be the Human Torch, paused over the intersection. "You're welcome, Brooklyn. Am I hot today, or am I hot today?" He took a bow to a combination of cheers and catcalls, and sped off toward Manhattan. 

"Grandstanding ass," Steve muttered.

Darcy grinned. "No, tell me what you really think."

He glanced down at her and turned a truly enchanting shade of pink. "I'm sorry. That's no language to use in front of a lady. Here it is, your first morning in New York, and the Fantastic Four take out three flying Doombots over the city. What must you be thinking..."

Darcy glanced around at the people giving superheros and supervillians both no more than _same old, same old_ attention, at the cabbies swerving around bits of burning Doombot in the intersection, at the firetrucks roaring down the street toward the rising column of smoke in the park, at the tall, blond hottie with the stunning blue eyes and shoulders out to there and cupid's bow mouth and manly chin who'd run to see if she was all right. Manly chin... Darcy shook her head, momentarily distracted. 

"What do I think?" She laughed, saluted Steve with her mug, and ground out a tiny tangle of smouldering wire that had drifted down to land between the toes of her boots. "I think I love New York."


	2. If I Can Make it Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy was fairly impressed she'd held her tongue for two whole days. Fine. Nearly two days. Okay, a day and a half. Or just under.

There were seven probationary agents in Darcy's training group. All of them recent graduates, none of them with any kind of SHIELD relevant job experience. Logically, given the hit they'd taken during the Chitauri invasion – the Avengers may have gotten the most of the press but Darcy'd checked thousands of YouTube videos and seen the men and women fighting and falling in the background – they had to be recruiting from the armed forces and police forces and poaching from other agencies. _Those_ recruits were obviously part of a different training program.

Her group, Darcy figured, might have more to learn but they had less to unlearn as well. 

Three were the kind of jocks who considered brain and body a well oiled machine. Varsity sports and a solid 4 point GPA, picked their majors as freshmen, never deviated. Two of them had degrees in World History, one in Criminal Psychology – Lori had been heading for the FBI when SHIELD made her a better offer. They were ambitious, driven, and a little OCD in Darcy's opinion. 

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Lori muttered when Darcy had explained that she considered her body more as one of those big lush Indian temples set up for a Bollywood dance number rather than a thousand steps up to a blood-stained altar.

Darcy sighed and patted her on the arm. "I know."

The other three were of the brain the size of a planet, PhDs at twenty-one, easily distracted by shiny ideas type. Kevin was skinny and twitchy and reminded Darcy of Jane. Except for the sideburns. His sideburns. Not Jane's. During their brief moments of downtime, all three of the geeks bitched and complained about doing the physical training while the jocks complained about the geeks. 

Darcy was fairly impressed she'd held her tongue for two whole days. Fine. Nearly two days. Okay, a day and a half. Or just under.

"You want to play with the cool toys?" she snapped as a geek whined about the morning's gym time. "This is the only way to the labs, so suck it up. And you..." She spun on one heel and cut off an impending supercilious comment. "...if you lot want to go out in the field without your secret agent combination decoder ring and personal body shield, just keep talking smack because these geeks, these are the geeks who'll be developing that."

"Not possible," Kevin began.

"Shut it," Darcy told him. "Just because you're smarter than everyone around you does not make you smarter than everyone around you."

"That's..."

"Hands up everyone who didn't get lost coming in on the subway this morning."

Kevin glared down at his fish taco.

Darcy glanced around the group and nodded. "Better. Also, while we're at it, I'm going to use my headphone chord to strangle the next person who sings anything by Justin Beiber while on the treadmill next to mine."

Five heads nodded while Darrell, the largest of the jocks, who'd been an all star college running back – which Darcy knew meant football, she'd gone to university in the United States for crying out loud she'd just been yanking his chain – flushed. Then Hannah, one of the geeks, came in on Darrell's side. Lori made a comment about classic rock, Kevin complained that modern country might as well be classic rock and the group divided into country/not country both sides equally jock and geek. 

_And we have soothed savage breasts,_ Darcy thought with satisfaction as, still arguing, the group cleaned up the debris of their lunch and headed toward an hour of international situations – which was international politics as seen through the lens of a not as secret as they used to be, ass-kicking government organization.

"A moment Probationary Agent Lewis."

Darcy turned to see a senior agent – they were stupidly easy to spot; just watch the reaction of the junior agents – crossing the cafeteria toward her. She waved the others on, and waited by the bins.

"I couldn't help but notice what you did," he said when he was close enough for private conversation. 

"I sorted my recycling?"

He grinned and adjusted his glasses. "Before that. You deliberately defused the tension in your training group. Now given that we're barely halfway through day two, I'm wondering why you bothered. All right, not bothered exactly," he amended before she could get the protest out. "As the attempt could have blown up in your face, uniting them all against you, I'm wondering why you didn't give it a little more time to work itself out naturally."

"You're kidding me, right, Agent...?"

"Sitwell. And no, I'm not kidding."

Darcy rolled her eyes. "Then you're clearly not aware that this afternoon, they're giving us guns."

Three nights later she came home to find Steve halfway into the building, his helmet strap caught over the door handle, his big, square portfolio/backpack jammed sideways, and his arms full of struggling orange cat.

"I've got it." She tugged him back half a step and freed the strap which allowed him to turn enough to free the portfolio. Once they were all inside, with the door closed, Sam stopped struggling and Steve sighed in relief. Darcy noted the circles under his eyes, the smug of dirt across his cheek, and the way his hair lay matted against his forehead. "You look like work's been kicking your..." She searched for a compromise between words she couldn't say to man who wore checked shirts tucked into ironed khakis and words she couldn't say without feeling like a nursery school teacher. Ass was out. Bottom was out. "...butt."

Steve suddenly became very interested in the top of Sam's head. "It's not... work. It's the rebuilding. Although I suppose," he added, as much to himself as to her, "that's also work."

"Well, with me, it's definitely work."

He took a good look at her then. "Looks like it's been kicking your butt."

She managed a snicker, too tired to actually laugh. "Tell me about it. And strictly speaking, I'm not even working yet."

"Training?"

"Not quite. More like being assessed in order to be trained."

He didn't ask any more about her job and she didn't ask anything about his and they talked about cats they'd grown up with until they reached the fourth floor and Steve handed Sam over to Sylvia who grunted her thanks and closed her door before the Jeopardy theme deafened them both. 

"Hey."

Steve paused, one step down, hand on the bannister.

"You look too tired too cook and I know I'm too tired to cook and I was just going to order Chinese food and it's just as easy to order enough for two, right? So..." She sagged against the wall and let her backpack slide off her shoulder. "...you want to eat takeout Chinese together?"

"Your place or mine?" He flushed scarlet the moment he said it and Darcy let out a cackle of laughter. 

"Dude, I am way too tired to be that kind of a girl. Do you have an actual living room?"

"Uh... yes?"

"Good. Your place because I have a sofa bed that's been a bed for the last three days and I don't want to fold it up because that'll just delay me falling into it later. Also..." She frowned at her sleeve. "...why didn't you tell me I had my sweater on inside out?"

"I didn't..."

"Notice? Men. You go and kick the underwear that's lying on the floor in the middle of your living room into the bedroom and I'll be down as soon as I get out of my costume. You don't honestly think I dress like this out of choice," she added when his brows rose. "Go. I'll bring my already amazing collection of takeout menus down with me."

As Steve disappeared down the stairs and Darcy dug out her key, the door across the hall opened far enough for Mark to lean out and give her an enthusiastic thumbs up. "You go, girl. I'd have tapped that in a minute if he drove stick."

"Were you listening..."

"Absolutely." He grinned, and closed the door.

"I am totally rocking my kooky neighbours bingo card," she muttered.

Steve's apartment didn't so much look neat as unlived in, the furniture and walls the same beige as her place but without the mess that gave her bland a personality. The only thing that hinted at habitation was the huge drawing table by the big front window, a charcoal sketch of the park across the street laid out on it, the edges of the table and the floor around it piled high with every possible type art supply – most of them unopened, Darcy noted. A second portfolio, significantly less chunky than the one he usually carried leaned against the wall. 

On another night, when she didn't feel like crap on a cracker, she'd ask to see his etchings.

He'd clearly grabbed a quick shower and while she appreciated the way his white t-shirt clung to damp skin – because she wasn't dead – she was too tired and hungry to appreciate it much. When he raised both brows at the tumbled mess of her hair, her faded sweats, and hand-knit, over-sized, multi-yarn sweater she'd bought to fight the chill of the New Mexico desert, she handed him the stack of menus and said, "I'm trusting you with my secret identity."

He looked startled, then he laughed. "Dishevelled Girl?"

"Captain Eclectic." Darcy dropped onto his couch and closed her eyes. "If you order from Mr. Po under my name, we'll get extra egg rolls."

"You've only lived in Brooklyn for five days."

She cracked an eye, peering over the edge of her glasses. "Do I look like I cook?

Steve was in the kitchen making green tea when the food arrived. Darcy paid for it and got the door closed before he managed to get his wallet out. 

"Here." He held out a twenty and a ten. "I should..."

"Seriously," she cut the protest short, "this isn't a date and when you eat with a friend, you split the bill. You can pay for half."

He looked a little startled, smiled in a way that made Darcy want to kick the ass of whoever had hurt him that badly, took a deep breath, and finally said, "But I'll be eating twice as much."

"Good point." Dracy plucked the twenty from his fingers. "Now let's eat before the lo mein congeals."

"That would be bad?"

"Dude, you have no idea."

When the food was gone and Darcy had to chose between falling asleep on Steve's couch or going home, she reluctantly heaved herself up onto her feet. "Sorry about the lack of dinner conversation." They'd talked a little about the food but most ate in companionable silence. "We should do this again sometime."

He stood as well, caught his chopsticks as they tumbled off his lap, and set them with the debris on the coffee table. "I'm not home much..."

Darcy swept a hand around at the lack of decorating. "I can tell."

"No, I mean, I just... I don't always know when I'm going to be here. I sometimes stay with a friend in Manhattan and..."

"Dude." Darcy held up a hand, wondering why she felt so disappointed. Like she'd said, this wasn't a date, it was just making a friend. "I get it. Romance before bromance. Although, I'm not a bro so this can't be..."

"No. It's not romance. It's just convenient. And..." He ducked his head and when he glanced up at her, the sad was back. "...I don't have many friends. I wanted to live... I wanted a life." He made a noise that was probably supposed to be a laugh and Darcy's heart hurt. "It's just sometimes, coming back here, it's not... I mean, it's..."

"Not how you remembered it?" When his brows rose, she added, "You told me you used to live here and you moved back. You probably look for things you used to know when you were a kid and when they're not there, you feel like you've been left behind, right? Tell you what," she continued before he could answer – not that he needed to, his expression gave everything away – "no pressure but I'd be willing to help you make new memories. I don't exactly have a lot of friends here myself."

"Yet." There was less sad in this smile so Darcy counted it a win.

"Yet," she acknowledged. She'd never had any trouble making friends. "But you can be my first. And I can be part of your Brooklyn reboot."

"Darcy..."

She waited, acknowledging that it wasn't so much patience on her part as continuing exhaustion.

Finally he smiled. "I'd like that."

And then, of course, they didn't see each other for the next four days. Not in the hall, not in the coffee shop across the street, not during Sam's daily escape attempts, not even on the last day of week one when Darcy's training group was sent out to help with the ongoing rebuilding of Manhattan. 

"It's a waste of our talents," Kevin whined. 

"Well, yeah, because bitching and complaining's going to be a lot of help." Darcy rolled her eyes. "It's exposure to consequences. They want us to realize that this is what joining SHIELD means."

"Grunt work." For the first in five days, Lori agreed with Kevin. 

"That too but..." _Giant robots that shot fire and an old man who told funny stories about rodeos who didn't get out of the way in time._

"But what, Probationary Agent Lewis?" The ice and steel in the voice pulled Darcy around as much as the question. Assistant Director Hill stood by the door in jeans and a sweat stained t-shirt, holding a pair of heavy leather work gloves in one hand, clearly just heading off a clean-up detail. "What is it that we want you to realize about SHIELD when we send you out to move pieces of broken concrete."

"That we won't be able to save everyone." Someone behind her muttered, oh give me a break, and Hill's brows rose. Darcy felt her cheeks go hot, it hadn't sounded quite so Hallmark card in her head, but she lifted her chin and met the assistant director's gaze.

After a long moment, Hill snorted and said, "Don't you lot have somewhere to be?"

Darcy looked for Steve among the civilian crews – because hey, such a hardship staring at sweaty, muscular men – but didn't spot him.

She spent the weekend doing laundry, sleeping, and watching the Avengers destroy several squidish looking things that had climbed out of the Upper Bay and attacked Liberty Island – for no good reason that Darcy could see. The colour commentator seemed convinced they were innocent watery bystanders mutated by alien debris still in the bay and confused by their sudden ability to breathe air and rip police boats in half.

While Hawkeye and the Black Widow rescued the police officers in the water, Hulk and Ironman played squidish skeet – Ironman would yell PULL and Hulk would toss a squidish in the air to be blown apart by repulsor beams. Meanwhile Captain OMG-his-ass-in-those-tights America was using his shield to slice and dice. Since no one had gotten hurt – everyone on the island had time to get into the statue and everyone from the boat had been accounted for – it was remarkably satisfying television. Darcy made popcorn.

During her second week, random testing began. 

Pop quizzes; any time, any place. 

"What was the significance of the September '06 accord with the Chechen rebels?"

Swinging upside down in a harness beside a really stupidly tall climbing wall, Darcy rolled her eyes toward the speaker in the ceiling. "Seriously?"

Random projectiles.

"There's a nerf grenade in my soup."

"If it was a real grenade, you'd be dead," Kevin pointed out.

"If it was a real grenade, we'd all be dead," Darcy growled. "The soup is tomato. This blouse is silk. I find out who threw that thing, and they're meat! OW!"

"Nerf arrow," Lori said helpfully.

"Shut up!"

More pop quizzes.

"The hostile you're tailing has made your position. How do complete your objective?"

T-shirt half off, Darcy leaned forward until her forehead hit the locker door. "Seriously?"

More random projectiles.

"A sticker on the face is not a random projectile!" 

"Were you expecting it?" the unknown agent asked.

"No!" It wasn't peeling off either.

"Seems random to me. You can't turn so trustingly when you hear a noise behind you."

And still more pop quizzes.

"The hostage has been freed, but you've been hit twice and there's three hostiles remaining. What do you do?"

Darcy tucked in her shirt and zipped up her trousers. "I ask if their organization has a problem with people peeing in private," she snarled as the toilet flushed.

She'd started jerking awake, anticipating stupid questions or something suddenly in her space. Not that there was much time _to_ sleep given that her group was suddenly required at SHIELD from six to nine and it took her almost an hour to get there. She saw Steve heading out on his run but didn't have time to more than wave before she had to race for the subway.

By Friday, she was severely over-caffeinated and twitchy bordering on homicidal. Hurrying down the hall toward Agent Sitwell and her training group – the last one to arrive – she heard a quiet thump behind her. Teeth clenched, she spun around, flexed her shoulders back, popped the top four buttons on her blouse, and kicked the grinning agent reaching out with a sticker right in the nuts.

He whimpered and dropped. 

Fully aware that if she even thought of following through, she'd get her clock cleaned, Darcy backed off a careful distance until he caught his breath. At that, she was still significantly closer than everyone else in the hall – junior and senior, they'd scrambled back as though the downed agent kept live grenades in his pants. 

Actually, this was SHIELD. That was possible.

"You okay?" she asked after a moment.

He squinted up at her, curled around his crotch. "You kicked me in the nuts."

"You said I was too trusting when people snuck up behind me."

He stared at her for a moment then shrugged. "Fair enough. Wouldn't have happened," he added, uncurling and wincing, "if your boobs hadn't distracted me."

Darcy snorted. "That's why I popped the buttons."

His brows rose. "You deliberately distracted me with your boobs?"

"It's what boobs are for." She refastened the last button and grinned at him. "Well, assuming you've been weaned."

He stared at her for another long moment then he started to laugh. Darcy knew she had to be imagining it, but it seemed like everyone watching started to breathe again. The agent wasn't really tall and his nose was a little big, but his arms were to die for and he laughed like he didn't laugh often enough. Like he was kind of surprised to be doing it now. Like he was letting go of something. When he finally pulled himself together, he said, "Clint."

It took her a moment. "Darcy."

"Darcy... Lewis?" When Clint smiled – a real smile, not the more pain than joy expression he'd worn when he laughed – he stopped being a moderately attractive man and brought the heat. "You're Dr. Foster's grad student. You tazed Thor."

"Graduated ex-grad student. And I did. But in fairness, Jane had already hit him with her car."

"Ah, the weird courting rituals of geeks and gods."

"Tell me about it." She leaned forward and held out her hand, fully aware that it gave him a direct line of sight down her cleavage. She _had_ kicked him in the nuts. 

His hand was warm and calloused and he clearly didn't her need help but he held on until he was standing, then reluctantly let go. "I am not going to enjoy filling out the form for this."

"No way there's a form for getting nailed in the nuts."

"Way. If I wasn't in a relationship..." His brows rose and fell salaciously. "...I'd show it to you."

She grinned. "Sweet talker."

As Clint headed off to find an ice pack...

"Because you kicked me in the nuts."

"Dude, seriously. Let it go."

...Darcy joined Agent Sitwell and her training group, still waiting at the end of the hall. "Sorry about the delay."

"You tazed Thor?" Lori's eyes were enormous.

"You know Dr. Jane Foster?" Kevin might've been drooling a bit.

"You just kicked Hawkeye in the crotch!"

That wasn't a question, so Darcy asked one. "I did?"

"Clint Barton. Hawkeye!"

"The Avenger?" Darcy sighed at the enthusiastic affirmative. "Well, let's hope the next set of alien invaders don't have boobs. Sir? Agent Sitwell? You okay?"

Coffee dribbling out his nose, Sitwell waved her off.

She actually got home at a decent hour that night and found Steve waiting outside her door.

He pushed himself off the wall as she arrived, glanced down at his hands, up at the light fixture, over at Mark, Rob, and Alan's door – where someone may or may not have been snickering – then finally at her. One thing Darcy had to say for Steve, when he looked at her, he looked her in the eyes. If she hadn't caught him sneaking glances at her breasts when he thought she wasn't looking, she'd have been worried, but as it was, the _not gay_ box stayed ticked. 

"I heard something at work today and... I mean..." He took a deep breath. "Do you want to go out for dinner. On a date. Not as friends. Where I pay."

What the hell had he heard at work, she wondered. Still he worked in the clean-up and rebuilding so it probably wasn't pleasant. She could be his distraction. How distracted did he want to be? "Sure. When?"

"It's Friday night so... I mean, traditionally. Uh...tonight?"

"Can I have a half an hour to clean up?"

"You will?"

"I will." It was cute he looked so surprised. She gave him a little shove toward the stairs, enjoying the warm curve of muscle under her hand. "Come back and get me in half an hour."

Steve had barely reached the stairs when the door across the hall opened and Rob leaned out to give her a quick thumbs up. Darcy closed _her_ door before he could comment.

"He doesn't wear jeans outside his apartment," she murmured as she stripped. "Almost a full foot taller," she reminded herself in the shower. "Wants distraction," she pointed out to her reflection as she dried her hair.

Black jersey skirt, wrapped snug around her hips and ass. Over it, a black peasant blouse embroidered in red around the neckline in a way that drew the eye to the possibility of red lace beneath it. She'd bought it at a road side stand in New Mexico only to find that it had been made for Macy's. The cowboy boots – those were authentic. 

Casual enough for a mom and pop diner. Dressy enough for uptown. Not a sure thing, but it all came off quick just in case.

His knock, when it came, was so _once more into the breech_ it sounded like he'd had to draw himself up to attention before he managed it. Darcy liked the thought of him girding his loins for her. Even in his grandpa pants, they were very nice loins. She painted the new _Iron Man Red_ over her mouth and flung open the door before he changed his mind and ran.

They ended up at a mom and pop diner.

"I hope you don't mind, I just..."

"Steve, do you see the sign in the window? Best meatloaf in New York." She grabbed his hand and tugged him through the door. Only an idiot would have missed the relief on his face. Darcy Lewis was no idiot. Plus, she really liked meatloaf.

He only recently gotten out of the military and he clearly didn't want to talk about it. So while they waited for their order, Darcy talked. She told him about Culver, about how her parents' insurance money – invested by her grandmother and her Great Uncle Stan – had paid the tuition and for a crappy apartment off campus after three month of the dorms.

"During which time, I'm proud to say that, even with massive provocation, I didn't strangle anyone. Massive provocation mostly being blatant stupidity. I don't mind stupid people," she added before he could comment. "But smart people not using their brains really gets up my nose."

"Your nose must take a beating." He grinned. 

She grinned back. "Totally."

Then his grin disappeared. "Your parents died?"

"Back when I was a baby. I have zero memory of them. Really." He was looking all soft and sad for her and she hated that. It was why she liked getting the dead parents out of the way early on. "Look, you can't miss what you never had."

His hand was warm and calloused and covered hers completely. "Yes, you can."

Then his hand was gone and Darcy took a deep breath because almost no one got the whole phantom pain thing and on the exhale told him about accidentally getting a part-time job in a car dealership and how she drove her advisor nuts by switching her major. A lot. 

"It was just..." She started to sketch her frustration in the air, realized she was holding a forkful of mashed potatoes and gravy, and put the fork down. "...they kept saying you have to know where you're going and I was all I'd like a look at a few more destinations, please! You know?"

"I was in art school... before."

Darcy wanted to know why he stopped but what she said was, "You any good?"

Steve looked startled, like he'd been expecting the question she hadn't asked. "Actually, yeah. I am."

"Prove it."

"I don't have..."

When she made chicken noises at him, he burst out laughing – looking surprised by it in a way that reminded her weirdly of Clint – carved his knife through his potatoes, poured more gravy over them, and turned his plate toward her.

It was recognizably her. In potatoes and gravy. 

"Okay, I don't want to be the person who says you should be doing that for a living because I have no idea why you aren't but if you wanted to, you absolutely could."

"There's a market for potato art?" 

Because the toe of her boot was pointy and covered in a silver cap, she kicked him with the side. This time his laughter had a lot less baggage. "It's America. There's a market for everything." She took a quick picture with her phone then pushed the plate back across the table to him, clamping her teeth down on the inappropriate desire to say, _I don't usually let a guy eat me on the first date._ Inappropriate because while she had no problem with the slightly crude, Steve just didn't seem like the kind of guy who'd appreciate it. From a friend, sure, but not from a girl he was... dating. And yeah, it was a bit of a sexist double standard. Sort of. Maybe it was manners. Maybe it was just respecting his limits. Darcy wasn't sure, but she knew she liked him enough to not want to freak him out. 

So while he ate – suddenly pink cheeks suggesting he might've had the thought himself the sly, shy pooch – she devoured the best meat loaf in New York and told him the non classified stuff about Jane. Turned out he had crazy-genius-scientist friends too and the forgetting to put on pants thing was both universal and non gender specific.

Since her foot was already over on his side on the table, she pushed her calf up against his and left it there.

After dinner, they went to an Italian ice cream place Darcy raced past every morning on the way to the subway and walked slowly home, eating their gelato in a silence she didn't feel the need to fill. Which was weird, but a good weird so she went with it.

By the time they got back to the apartment building, she had her arm looped in his and was resting her head on the outside curve of his shoulder – which was remarkably comfortable considering how solid it was. 

"Darcy? You falling asleep on me?"

"Sorry. It's been a week."

She woke up enough that he didn't have to carry her up the stairs, then woke up the rest of the way when they stood outside her door and he was looking down at her with an expression as much determined as interested and hell, she'd take determined. Determined got things done.

And then he pulled out his cell phone...

"Is that one of the new Stark phones? Oh my God – and I say that in an entirely non-ironic manner -- it's gorgeous."

Steve snorted as he stroked the screen. Darcy was momentarily jealous of both screen and fingertip. "It's way more complicated than I need."

"It's way more complicated than anyone needs. I suspect that's kind of the point." She frowned. "Are you calling someone? Because giving your buddies a run down of the date before the date is over is kind of uncool."

"What?" He flushed. "No! I wouldn't!"

"Sorry." A raised hand cut off the protests he was about to continue. "Jumped to conclusions. Totally my bad. In fairness, I think I was actually asleep between floors two and three."

To her relief, he smiled. "I know. It's just, you need to fall over and so I thought we could trade telephone numbers. I hear it's what people do when things go well."

"Yeah." Smiling back at him, she fumbled her _significantly_ less amazing phone out of her purse. "It's what people do when things go well." When it was done, she wound her fingers into the front of his pale blue shirt. "And you know what else they do..."

At first she thought he wasn't going to kiss her back then one big hand cupped the back of her head and he got with the program with gratifying enthusiasm. His lips were firm and in spite of his grip, he let her lead. Total lack of slobbering. And he tasted like chocolate gelato.

"Nine out of ten." They were still so close, she could feel the huff of air against her mouth when he laughed. "I'm not that tired."

"Yes, you are."

"Yes, I am. Tomorrow?"

"I have a meeting in the morning but I should be done by lunch."

"I should be awake by lunch."

"Glad to hear it."

He kissed her again, keeping more control this time, and she let him hold her up while he plundered her mouth. When he gently pushed her away, she sighed and said, "You could take advantage of my exhausted state to take advantage."

"No, I couldn't."

"No, you couldn't. Good night, Steve."

"Good night, Darcy." A last touch against her cheek, and he was gone.

Darcy waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps on the stairs and wasn't surprised to see Alan waiting by his open door when she turned. 

"Your boy has Iron Man all over his mouth."

She rolled her eyes. "Thanks for the visuals." Frowned. Considered it for a moment. Grinned. "No, really, thanks for the visuals."


	3. How to Advance from the Mailroom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy'd never waited around for a guy to call and she wasn't about to start now. Even if this particular guy might be worth waiting for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically, this is chapter 2b since we've only just covered the second thing Darcy loves about working for SHIELD. With any luck, the chapters will not continue growing or by the time I get to chapter six it'll be a big bang all on its own.
> 
> Thank you for all the kind words. I kind of love my Darcy too. :)

Sprawled half off the mattress, Darcy rummaged on the floor for her purse then rummaged through her purse for her phone then swore at the battery level.

"Darcy?"

"Sorry. Not swearing at you. Stupid phone..."

"Okay." Steve sounded like he was smiling. She decided to count that as a win. "Listen, I'm very sorry but I can't make lunch today. Something has come up at... work and I can't get away. I really did want to spend more time with you and... and you have no idea how much I hate delaying this."

The smile had been wiped from his voice. Sounded like the boy had some issues with delayed gratification.

"S'cool. It's just lunch." She flipped over and fumbled her glasses on. Ten forty-five. "My revised plans include laundry and naps. Drop by when you get home and we'll hang."

"I don't know when..."

She could hear a siren in the background. Actually, she could hear two sirens in the background – one from the phone and one from the street outside. She'd come to suspect that the NYPD turned on their sirens just to get to work on time. She sure as shit would.

"I have to..."

"Go," Darcy finished as the call cut off. She tossed her phone in the general direction of the charger and stumbled for the shower.

By the time she turned on the TV, the Avengers were battling a street gang who'd gotten their hands on Chitauri weapons and had actually taken the time to learn how to use them. The weapons themselves tended to take care of the stupidly opportunistic. Rumour had it, SHIELD R&D had been trying to reverse engineer Chitauri tech since the invasion with no success. Darcy wondered how Stark's R&D was doing; no way Tony Stark hadn't grabbed a few bits and pieces after the fight. She made a mental note to call Jane. Again.

This wasn't a fun fight, not like the squidish had been. Whole new bits of Manhattan were being blown to ratshit and Darcy wasn't naive enough to think no one had been hurt. She wondered if her training group would be getting another "we can't save everyone" lesson. And she thought of the sadness lingering behind the laughter in Clint's eyes and wondered if anyone had thought to say the same thing to the Avengers. Or if it would help.

At least she knew what Steve was doing. With new damage to rebuild, the old rebuilding needed to be finished PDQ.

She'd have missed him more but her boxes came just after lunch and by the time she finished tetres-ing her past into her tiny apartment, the sun was long down. And her phone was dead. Fortunately, Steve lived downstairs...

Steve wasn't home. He'd probably stayed with his friend in Manhattan. 

Lori called at ten the next morning. The training group was heading out to Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park at Coney Island. As Lori tried to sell her on the trip, Darcy raced down to the third floor. 

Steve still wasn't home.

Darcy'd never waited around for a guy to call and she wasn't about to start now. Even if this particular guy might be worth waiting for. "I'm in."

She sent Steve a text on her way to the subway. 

Four hours and five hotdogs and Kevin puking in a trashcan later, she finally got a reply. ::Wish I was there.::

She had no idea how he made a text look wistful.

 

***

"You said stop him." Darcy stood, folded her arms around the five foot long piece of PVC pipe, and looked Agent Sitwell in the eye. "You didn't say shoot him."

Sitwell glared down at her. Behind him, the rest of her training group cradled their paint pistols and watched, expressions all a variation on _you're going to get it now._

"Probationary Agent Lewis..."

Darcy only barely kept herself from rolling her eyes. It wasn't like she couldn't figure out who he was talking to.

"...you know very well that you were intended to stop Agent Chew with the weapon you were issued."

"We don't deal in intentions here, Agent Sitwell." Sitwell scrambled back, her training group froze, and Darcy looked up at Director Fury in full bad-ass regalia. "Probationary Agent Lewis is correct, you said stop him. You didn't say shoot him. And I would say that Agent Chew has been stopped. What would you say Agent Chew?"

"I'd say I've been stopped, sir," Agent Chew said, still gasping for air.

"You want to tell me why you came down onto the course and thrust a pipe between Agent Chew's legs before rather emphatically sitting on him _instead_ of using your weapon, Lewis?"

Darcy shrugged and offered Agent Chew a hand up. "It was something my Uncle Stan always said about city boys coming out to hunt, sir. If you can't hit it when it's standing still, you sure as hell can't hit it when it's moving."

One corner of Director Fury's mouth twitched. "He's not wrong."

"Sir, the point of the exercise was to prove that."

"Seems to have been proven, Agent." The director's gaze swept over Agent Chew's unmarked padding. "And then some. Ms. Lewis."

She mirrored his nod. "Director Fury."

***

"I met my boss today. He's not as scary as everyone says." Just to prove time spent dodging Nerf at SHEILD was having some effect, Darcy nearly managed to get out of the way of the beer Steve spewed all over the kitchen. She waited until he finished coughing then said, "Drinking problem?"

"Sorry." And he did look sorry; that was the thing about Steve, if he said he was sorry, he meant it. He didn't use the word as a place holder. "I guess I breathed in at the wrong time."

"You guess," Darcy snorted. She grabbed a roll of paper towels from the counter – because they were at Steve's place, at hers they'd have had to use toilet paper, or dirty laundry – and began wiping up the splatter. "Anyway, I'm not saying he's a teddy bear, I'm just saying he's actually pretty reasonable. Reasonable, but bad-ass," she amended after a moment. "Everyone's afraid of him but that's stupid. It's like being afraid of a volcano. The volcano doesn't give a crap what you think of it, so you respect it's destructive powers and get the hell out of the way when it blows." She looked up to find Steve staring at her and was suddenly afraid she'd said too much. Would someone who did _office stuff_ have that kind of reaction to their boss? "What?"

He smiled. The smile hit her in the chest and rapidly travelled south. "You're remarkable."

"Thank you." Although this was only officially their second date and Darcy had promised herself she'd keep to the three dates before sex rule if it killed her, she gave a moment's consideration to kicking his feet out from under him and beating him to the floor. Then her stomach growled. "Weren't you making mac and cheese?"

"I was..."

"Gourmet mac and cheese, you promised. With wienie bits cut into it."

"I remember."

"So." She clapped her hands. "Get to it. Oh, and I almost forgot..." While he set the pot of water on the stove to boil, she ran over and grabbed the afghan from where she'd dropped it on the floor. In her own defence, she'd been distracted by the narrow line of skin above the worn denim barely hanging onto Steve's hips when he'd answered the door and then they'd both been distracted by the _hello again_ kiss which had nearly broken the three dates rule all on its own. "...my stuff came on the weekend and I brought you an afghan for your sofa. It looks all beige and naked."

To her relief, because Darcy was well aware some guys didn't appreciate homemade knitware, he wore his pinked-up and pleased expression. "Did you make it?"

"Seriously? No." She draped it so that it covered most of the sofa-back. "I tried once but got bored at about scarf size. On the other hand, properly motivated, I've got mad skills with fingerless mittens." Something significantly bigger than a pigeon buzzed by the window and Darcy leaned over Steve's drawing board for a better look. "Didn't seem bright enough for the Human Torch. Maybe it was Iron Man. As if," she added before Steve could respond. "I somehow doubt Tony Stark even knows where Brooklyn is. Oh hey!" Glancing down, she picked up a sketch from the board. "This is me. No, wait, _these_ are me." 

She flipped through the half dozen sketches and stopped at the last. He'd drawn her on the nose of an old plane, sitting back on her heels, spine arched, hands up behind her head. It was cartoony but definitely her. Only _more_ her. The girl on that plane was confident and sexy and had probably never fallen off a climbing wall. Even her glasses looked sexy.

"Darcy, I'm..."

"Stupidly, amazingly talented. Yeah, you are."

"But I shouldn't..."

"Hide your light under a bushel? No, you shouldn't."

"Darcy." His hands closed on her shoulders and she looked up. "I'm trying to apologize."

"For?"

"Objectifying you." He said the word almost as though he were sounding it out. Like he'd seen it written but had never said it. "I know I shouldn't have but..."

"I like it. I know..." She raised a hand before he got his mouth open. "...hard core feminists would have my balls..."

"Uh..."

"...ova, but it took me a long time to see myself as anything but short and dumpy, too round, too much boob, too much ass. Girls shaped like pre-teen boys were in so I hid behind enormous sweaters and hair and sarcasm all through high-school and it wasn't until my Spanish professor took an interest – calm down..." Not hard to read Steve's expression. "...he wasn't that much older and I was acing his course anyway – that I realized I can be sex on wheels if I want to be. I like you saw that right away." She held up the sketch of her sprawled on his sofa in her New Mexico sweater, making a point with an emphatic chopstick. "But that's not all you saw. You saw me, that's pretty spe..."

The next few moments involved keeping the sketches from getting crushed while returning Steve's kisses with matching enthusiasm. SHIELD should be thrilled with her ability to multi-task while her brain dribbled out her ears. Hands finally free of paper she stroked her thumbs along the line of warm skin above his jeans, around his hips, fingers curving to...

"The water's boiling over." He murmured, pulling back. "And as much as I made myself a promise to stop putting things off, I promised you mac and cheese."

She pouted, finger hooked in his belt loops.

"With wienie bits."

"I am hungry." Grinning, she let him go. "And I kind of love that you can say wienie bits with a straight face."

Next morning at work, busy making plans for the world's shortest third date and then a reward for waiting the socially acceptable time, Darcy spotted a familiar suit heading the other way down the hall.

"Hey! Man in Black!" Waving the universal sign for _yeah, yeah, I'll be there in a minute, don't get your panties in a bunch_ at her training group, Darcy hurried after Agent I-Wasn't-Paying-Attention-to-Your-Name who she'd met – okay, fine, bitched out – in New Mexico. "You took a song off my iPod."

When he turned, he seemed thinner, tired, and he was leaning on a cane. His skin had that kind of pasty grey tinge to it that said he'd spent too long under the artificial light of a hospital room. It wasn't hard to do the math and figure he'd been one of the agents hurt during the invasion. She hesitated for a heartbeat, but his back was straight and his shoulders were squared and if there was one thing she'd learned visiting her cousin Hank after that time he rode his ATV off the side of the quarry, it was that strong men hated pity. So she folded her arms and glared.

"I assure you, Ms. Lewis, while we had to wipe your iPod for security reasons, all the songs were replaced and your playlists rebuilt."

"All the songs are there, yes, but Sinatra's _New York, New York_ is a lifeless, digital travesty."

He shifted his weight, moving the cane into more of a tripod position. "Tell me."

"Mine was recorded off vinyl, played on my grandmother's stereo."

His eyes widened slightly. If she hadn't been glaring so intently at his face, she'd have missed it. "Cheap microphone up against the speaker?"

"That's right."

"I see. I apologize for the oversight. I'll deal with it."

Something in the calm confidence of the statement made her believe him. "Thank you." She smiled. To her surprise, the corner of his mouth twitched in response. 

"Do you know who that is?" Kevin asked, eyes wide, when she rejoined the group.

Darcy shrugged. "Dude I met when I was working for Dr. Foster." Thor wasn't exactly a secret now, but he wasn't her not secret to talk about either. "He took my iPod."

" _That_ is Agent Coulson."

"He never leaves the office," Lori added.

"There's a theory, he's a cyborg."

"He died and came back from the dead."

"He once killed a man with a bag of gummy bears."

"How?" Darcy demanded.

Kevin frowned. "How what?"

"Well, duh." Darcy flipped up the first finger of her left hand. "Guys at his level always work longer hours than guys at yours, that's how they get to that level." Second finger. "Cyborgs are cool, my Uncle Stan has an artificial hip." Third finger. "EMTs bring people back from the dead all the time." That explained why Agent MiB looked like death warmed over. Baby finger. "How did he kill a man with a bag of gummy bears?"

No one knew.

"Stuffed the bag down his throat and held his nose while he suffocated is my guess. Maybe stuffed a few bears up the nose... What?" Darcy rolled her eyes. "You people have no imagination."

She was on the phone with her grandmother when Steve came by that evening. She gave him the universal gesture for _I have to take this_ and waved him in. 

"...kneeling on my living room floor recording Frank Sinatra off the stereo. They said you sent them."

When Agent MiB said he'd deal, he dealt. "Sort of Nana, but..."

"Don't _but_ me Darcy Evangeline Lewis. When you send agents from a secret government..."

"Kickass," Darcy interrupted.

"What?"

"Secret kick-ass government organization."

"Well, it's not as secret as it used to be," Darcy's grandmother snorted. "And fine. When you send agents from a secret _kick-ass_ government organization to your poor, aged..."

Darcy snorted in return. 

"...grandmother's house, would it kill you to give a little warning? I had the Williamson's potbellied pig in the kitchen to give it a break from the twins."

"Two highly trained agents can cope with one extremely spoiled pig."

"You think that, wouldn't you?"

Darcy spent five more minutes gathering blackmail material on Agents Harris and Lankowski -- neither of whom had ever met a pig before – promised she'd call more often, and hung up to find Steve running his fingers over the edge of her portable record player.

"This is..."

"More than retro. I know." It was turquoise and cream, the speakers were in the lid that detached, and it was four inches smaller than the diameter of a 33. "You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get needles for it."

"Actually, yeah, I would. I almost... recognize it."

He sounded kind of weird but happy about it so Darcy leaned into his side and said, "It belonged to my grandmother, from when she was a teenager in the sixties." 

"The sixties..."

Okay, that didn't sound so happy so Darcy tucked herself under Steve's arm, pressing her breasts against his side, and changed the subject. "That was my grandmother on the phone. You think it's safe to tell her about you yet? Or would I jinx us?"

He turned so she was pressed against his chest and wrapped his arms around her, his voice solemn as he said, "I think maybe you shouldn't tell her yet."

"S'Cool. The first trimester thing, right?"

"Uh..."

"When you get pregnant – calm down..." She patted his arms as he stiffened. "...never been pregnant – you don't tell people until after three months. Just in case. This is like that."

"It really isn't." He backed away, looking a little freaked. "Darcy, I really like you but..."

"Dude, chill." She waved a hand to get him to blink. "Totally not suggesting you knock me up. It was an analogy. You know, where one thing is like another? But one of these things is not like the others and one of these things isn't the same? Sesame Street," she added when he shook his head. He looked so uncomfortable, she sighed and stepped away herself. "Look, why don't we just rewind and dub over this whole conversation, and pretend it didn't happen. I know," she said to the wrinkles on his forehead, "record players and video tape, it's like I don't know what decade I live in." Smiling broadly, she pointed toward the sofa – currently and for the first time since she'd moved in, not a bed. "Oh, look, you brought your sketch book." When he looked confused, she stepped forward and punched him in the arm. "It only works if we both play!"

Unless he didn't want it to work. Steve seemed like the sort of guy she could emotionally blackmail by saying that out loud so she bit her tongue and waited.

After a long moment, he ran his hand back through his hair, and managed most of a smile. "I... uh... I've been sketching you from memory, but I wondered if... if I could draw you..."

"Like one of your French girls?" When he blinked at her, she shook her head. "You haven't seen _Titanic_ have you? Of course you haven't. It came out in 1997 and you'd have been what... twelve? No twelve year old boy would be caught dead at that kind of a tearjerker. Sit. I'll see if NetFlix has it. It's a great date film; you can comfort me when Celine Dione starts to sing. And then after..." She wet her lips. Steve's eyes locked on the path of her tongue. "...we'll talk about you drawing me."

Netflix had it. Darcy turned out the lights and they got comfortable on the couch under one of the afghans – it wasn't chilly but experience had taught her that shy boys were more likely to try something if they thought they wouldn't be seen. With any luck that would extrapolate to shy men. As the music came up, she dug a plastic bag out from between the sofa cushions and offered it to Steve.

"Gummy bear?"

She woke to the shrieking of her alarm with a vague memory of Irish music, lying on the sofa, covered in an afghan, with a note tucked under her hand. Apparently she'd looked so sweet Steve hadn't wanted to wake her. 

"Oh sure," she muttered stumbling for the bathroom. "In a just world, I'd have looked so hot he wouldn't have been able to resist waking me. Does he not know the third date rule?" Her reflection peered blearily back at her, a glistening line down the side of her jaw suggesting she'd been drooling in her sleep. 

***

"Oh for..." Darcy took a deep breath and set the french fry down. Stupid made her lose her appetite. "Look, SHIELD deals in covert and the Avengers are about as overt as you can get. You can't bury what they do."

"Sweetie this is SHIELD," Hannah said in a superior tone Darcy wanted to feed to her. "They can bury whatever they want."

"Sweetie," Darcy mocked, "I'm betting there's fake Avenger accounts all over social media and for everyone that SHIELD stamps out, another two will rise to take their place in fine super-villian fashion. Do you know how much You-Tube coverage there is of the whole giant space eels thing? You can't get rid of it without shutting down the entire internet." She pointed across the table before Hannah could speak. "No they can't shut down the entire internet. Even if they _can_ , they can't. You can't put this tiger back in the tank; all you can do is hang on and steer."

"You could shoot the tiger." Kevin offered.

Darcy moved her tray to one side and banged her head against the table.

"And do you think you could steer that tiger, Probationary Agent Lewis?"

What was it with Assistant Director Hill and lurking in the background of other people's conversations? Oh, right. Spy. "Hell no. But I think Shield should take a few lessons from Tony Stark."

"In alcoholism and irresponsible behaviour?"

Darcy rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. "In how to make the media his bitch. Sir. Ma'am."

Assistant Director Hill stared at her for a long moment – Darcy stared back, lips pressed into thin line – then nodded toward the clock and said, "Don't you people have somewhere to be?"

***

"...and drives me so crazy. Like anyone with half a brain can't see it's an act." Darcy shoved both hands up through her hair and paced the width of her apartment. Unfortunately, it wasn't far enough to help so she pivoted and did it again. And again. "He uses that public personae like Captain America uses his shield – the whole a strong offence is a good defence thing and no one gets close enough to touch his heart."

"What wrong with letting people touch your heart?" Steve asked, from where he was leaning against the wall by the door, safely out of the way. 

"Well, speaking metaphorically because physical hearts, remarkably gross." _Body thrown to one side by the blast, chest cavity cracked open, bones like shattered ivory, shreds of clothing still smoking slightly..._ Darcy shook the memory off and flashed a worried looking Steve a what she hoped was close enough to a reassuring smile to do. "That depends on how bruised your heart is, doesn't it? No one likes having bruises fondled."

"If he's hurting, why doesn't he just ask for help, instead of..." Steve waved a hand, clearly searching for polite enough words, finally settling on, "...acting like a jackass."

Darcy felt her brows go up. "Okay, first, because he's a guy. If you were carrying a really shitty past around with you – like not even at the level of being tortured in a cave for months and that was just the part in the papers – but like a crappy childhood or something, would you ask for help? _You're_ a guy. You've got issues." She raised a hand as Steve opened his mouth. "Not asking. Someday, maybe, hopefully, you'll be able to tell me. You're toughing through, strong and silent. Not criticizing," she added when he opened his mouth again. "Stark's way of coping is a little showier than yours. Than most. Than most everyone. Put together. And I imagine he's pretty fucking tired of having _poor, little rich boy_ thrown at his pain."

"Why do you care so much about Tony Stark?"

She couldn't quite parse Steve's tone. Anger, confusion, disbelief, guilt... "Because..." She stopped pacing. Took a deep breath. Walked over to Steve and laid her hand on his chest, his heart strong and sure under her palm. "Look, I don't know him, have never met him, but no one is that perfect a jackass without effort and no one puts that much effort in without cause. He's too good at the whole making you look away from the man behind the curtain thing."

Unexpectedly, Steve smiled. "I get that. The man behind the curtain thing."

"Yeah, well, that was a real jackass, not a faking it one. Bring the me the witch's broom." She laid her head against Steve's chest by her hand and nudged him until he put his arms around her. "Because it's so hard you'll run away and not bother me or because she'll kill you and hey, you're not bothering me." He smelled like fabric softener and soap and he was so warm that sharing a bed with him over the winter would raise her chance of survival because one little baseboard heater was going to do squat to keep her from freezing. "I'm sorry I went off at you. Work was... a day."

"They were mouthing off about Tony at work?"

Darcy snickered. "So he's Tony now?" Patted his chest as he tensed. "Never mind. It was just same old, same old. Let's forget he flew a nuke through a magic hole in the sky saving everyone in Manhattan and stopped two-headed calves and three-eyed babies being born for miles and miles downwind, and focus on the drinking and the dancing girls. But, letting it go. I'm done talking about him. You stopped by to collect on your prize for lasting three dates, right?" 

Because right now, the only thing that would make the day better was some serious horizontal time with a blond studmuffin.

"That's...uh..."

Oh crap. "I said that last bit out loud."

"Yes, you did."

She could feel Steve's chest shake as he tried not to laugh. "Fine. Embarrassing, but I'm owning it." Tilting up her face, she snaked an arm behind his head and pushed his mouth toward hers. "Let's do this."

The next few minutes became the first time all day she hadn't wanted to smack someone. Then Steve pulled back, lips slick and a little swollen, and said, "I have to go."

And that smacking feeling returned.

"Go?"

"Away. For a couple of days. It's... work."

"Rebuilding..."

"Politics of rebuilding," he growled. "Pencil pushers making decisions about people's lives too far away from the action to have any idea of what the hell is going on." His fingers tightened on her shoulders, his gaze focused on something only he could see. "I thought I was done with all that. I guess some things never change."

"Hey." Darcy kissed the dimple in his chin. When he refocused on her face, she smiled. "Old anger won't win new fights. Use your anger as a weapon, but forge it new every time." When he frowned, she shrugged. "I think my therapist was dating a blacksmith in the SCA."

"I don't know what that means."

"Not important. Point is, fierce looks hot on you. Actually, that's not the point, I got distracted." He was smiling again so she added another plus in the win column.

"I have to go."

"Now?"

"Now."

"Seriously? Now? And I wasted time we could have spent making out, ranting about Tony Stark?"

He cupped her face with both hands, holding her so he could stare into her eyes with an intensity that sent shivers down her back. Heated shivers. Weird. "I'm glad you did."

"Really? That's a little weird too."

"Too?"

"Never mind."

"I have to go."

"You said."

"Um... my shirt?"

She didn't remember having grabbed double handfuls of his shirt. "Oh no, wrinkles..." Using her thumb, she smoothed the thin fabric over the nubs of his nipples. Personal research – begun during a regrettable purple nurple incident with Jimmy Vazi in grade eight – had proven that male nipples were often a lot more sensitive than men suspected – given as how they were usually focused on the nipples they faced rather than the nipples they had. 

Steve's gasp added another data point.

"Darcy!" Reaching back, he got her apartment door open and backed out into the hall. "Two days. Three tops. And then..." He swallowed. "...we have to talk."

"Fine. As long as it's after. Or during. If pressed, I could cope with during although I'll warn you now, I won't be paying much attention."

He stared at her for a long moment and she could tell when he got what she was talking about by the sudden pink on his cheeks. "Definitely before!" He was wearing his determined expression again. "You don't just.... I mean, not with girls you..."

He definitely wasn't a virgin. No virgin kissed like Steve kissed. But maybe...

"Were you Amish?"

"Was I...? No!" He cocked his head, reminding her a little of her neighbour's Golden Retriever when he heard the ice cream truck. Darcy hadn't heard anything. "We can't talk about this now, I _really_ have to go. But when I get back..." Grabbing her shoulders, he dragged her up against his chest and kissed her like a promise.

But not like a promise of conversation, Darcy noted as Steve ran for the stairs. "Mixed messages," she sighed, "that's what's wrong with the world."

"Oh sweetie..."

No surprise to look up and find Mark standing in his doorway across the hall. 

"...I can't believe you haven't managed to tap that yet. Margarita?"

What she wanted was Steve. And not in a carnal way. Fine. Not exclusively in a carnal way. But if she couldn't have Steve, tequila sounded like a good second choice. "Oh hell, yes."

The next morning came with a slight hangover plus a middle-aged man wearing green body paint, Captain America underwear, and a plastic Iron Man helmet on the subway. He was also carrying a bow. Darcy couldn't see anything representing the Black Widow and decided she was actually okay with that.

The day's classes introduced the SHIELD rogue's gallery; from HYRDRA and AIM through a variety of less well organized organizations to Dr. Doom... 

"Usually, we leave him to the Fantastic Four. Unfortunately, they have a disturbing tendency to be elsewhere when Doom starts throwing his weight around. Over the years, we've found that a television crew will ensure that the Torch, at least, is at the scene. 

Darcy remembered Steve's response to the Torch and hid a snicker.

...right up to Loki. 

Darcy remembered the Destroyer and lost the urge to laugh.

In the afternoon, they were shown some of the things that happened to SHIELD agents in enemy hands.

"If you're a SHIELD agent, you wear a target. Whether you're in the labs or the control center or the field, that..." Agent Sitwell nodded at the display. "...could be you. You want out, this is your last chance before it becomes very, very complicated. Anyone?"

Not even Kevin, puking into a waste basket, took him up on the offer.

Blandly pleased -- or pleased to be bland, Darcy wasn't entirely sure – Sitwell nodded. "We will, of course, train you in how to survive torture until your fellow agents can find you. Probationary Agent Lewis?"

Darcy lowered her hand and leaned forward. "But that's _after_ you train us how to avoid being tortured in the first place, right?"

"There are times when you can't..."

"But there are times when you can and, personally, I'm all about avoidance before endurance. You know what they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a quart of blood loss. A stitch in time saves a forty-two stitches across the upper back. A spleen in the hand is worth..." She frowned. "Actually, I think my point is that I'd like to avoid having anyone holding my spleen.

Sitwell sighed. "Yes, Probationary Agent Lewis, we train you to survive torture _after_ we train you how to avoid being tortured in the first place."

Darcy spread her hands. "All I wanted to know."

That evening, Sam darted between her legs just as she reached the top of the stairs. Darcy twisted and scooped in one motion, straightening with Sam tucked under one arm to see a gorgeous redhead watching her. 

Everyone experiments in college. Darcy might have done a little more experimentation had there been anyone who looked like this woman on her campus. Or in her city. Or state. It wasn't just the curves or the creamy skin or the the plush mouth, it was the was the certain knowledge that in her hands a set of false eyelashes were a deadly weapon. Darcy wondered what she could do with gummy bears. And flushed.

Behind her, Sylvia said something in Russian and the gorgeous redhead replied at length in the same language. Darcy caught two words and a phrase: surprise, adorable, and _where will it never be found_ and hoped they were about the cat. 

"You have good reflexes," the redhead told her in unaccented English.

"Thanks." Darcy handed Sam over to Sylvia. "It's all in zigging when they zag."

"As in so much of life."

"Word." Darcy held out a fist.

The vaguely familiar redhead bumped it. "Thank you for keeping him off the street. It's more dangerous out there than he imagines."

"Sam?"

"Who else?"

It sounded as much like a threat as a question so Darcy tried a vacant smile. "Happy to help." By the time she got to her door, Sam, Sylvia, and the redhead were back in Sylvia's apartment. 

By the time she got her door open, Rob was standing in his, arms crossed over a bare, paint-flecked chest. At least Darcy hoped it was paint. "She's out of your league, kitten." Apparently sharing margaritas meant pet names and skin.

"Okay, first, how do you even know? I mean we were all the way down the other end of the hall. And second, never mind, I don't care. And third..." She flipped her hair and blew him a kiss. "...I'm in a league of my own and every day's the all star game." When Rob raised an exquisitely scornful brow, Darcy shrugged. "It sounded better in my head."

The next morning, their last morning of assessment, was all about forms. Darcy thought she'd already filled out every possible type of form back while waiting for the keys to her apartment.

She was wrong.

"In case of sex pollen to whom do I give reactive consent? Seriously? Sex pollen? That happens?"

"More often than you'd think," Sitwell admitted. "Not as often as some people claim."

"Some people... some agents believe _I've been doused with sex pollen_ is a valid pickup line?" When Sitwell nodded, Darcy shook her head. "Welcome to SHIELD," she muttered, bending back over her form. "Some of us didn't date much in high-school. Or college. Or..." 

"Probationary Agent Lewis?"

Darcy looked up to see a junior agent she hadn't met, standing in the doorway of the small conference room. 

"You're wanted in Agent Coulson's office. Now."

"Darcy's gonna get it," Kevin sing-songed quietly.

"Is she in trouble?" Lori asked as Darcy shuffled her completed forms into a pile. 

"Not your concern," Sitwell told her. "Your concern is filling in a preferred name in case of accidental gender reassignment. Her concern is remembering the definition of the word _now_."

"I'm going!"

The agent sent to get her seemed about to speak all the way to Agent Coulson's office. She opened and closed her mouth in the corridor outside the conference rooms, in the elevator and as they crossed the big office filled with junior agents in cubicles disguising a more or less secret government kick-ass organization as any cubicle farm in America. When they reached an empty desk set up in a short hall outside a perfectly normal wooden door, P. Coulson on the discrete brass plaque, the agent cleared her throat and said, "They say he demanded a tie in ICU."

Darcy frowned. "How much coffee have you had today?" she asked as she stepped past and knocked on the door. 

A familiar gorgeous redhead opened it. "Probationary Agent Lewis."

She wore a black pencil skirt and a royal blue blouse and heels Darcy would've killed herself on. Off. Because she couldn't have stayed on. Still, anyone who could flip off Captain America's shield and onto an alien hover-bike could handle Jimmy Choos. 

"I should have recognized you from YouTube."

"Not if I didn't want you to." 

"There's that."

Agent Coulson's office looked... lived in. It had a window, and wooden floors, and a huge leather sofa, and a wooden desk, and a terrifying number of filing cabinets. Agent Coulson was sitting behind the desk looking tired. Clint sat on a corner of the desk looking smug.

"Darcy," he said as the Black Widow indicated where she should stand.

"Clint." Darcy put her feet exactly where the assassin/spy/Avenger told her to. She might be inclined to question authority, but she wasn't stupid.

When the Widow muttered something in Russian, Clint laughed. "She says, I'm too fond of women who can beat me up."

"Technically, I didn't beat you up."

"He went down," the Widow snorted, settling on the opposite corner of the desk. "I'm counting it."

"I got kicked in the nuts," Clint pointed out. "And she's wearing nut kicker boots." All three of them looked down at Darcy's Docs. "Fortunately," he added, "we were able to work around it."

The smirk went straight to Darcy, but he directed the brief flash of wonder and joy and love at...

...Agent Coulson.

Interesting. Given his reaction to her boobs, Hawkeye was definitely a switch-hitter. Agent Coulson, however, was...

...looking only marginally better than the last time she'd seen him. Darcy frowned and wondered why the hell he was even at work. 

As though he knew what she was thinking, Agent Coulson sighed and said, "As you may have heard, Ms. Lewis, I recently rose from the dead. It was more tiring than I expected. I've been informed I require an assistant and both Director Fury and Assistant Director Hill, as well as Agents Sitwell, Barton and Romanoff, think you're right for the job."

Clint snorted. "He remained unconvinced until Captain America weighed in."

Darcy thought Agent Coulson's pale cheeks may have flushed slightly. "I gave the captain's opinion no more credence than anyone else's. Assistant Director Hill seemed to think I deserved you. Agent Sitwell seems to think you deserve me."

Leaving who deserved what aside, for now, there was one thing Darcy needed to know before she could decide about taking the job. Provided SHIELD gave her a choice. Which, on reflection, was unlikely. "What exactly do you do? I mean, besides kill bad guys with gummy bears."

"Once," Coulson muttered as the two agents snickered. "I am," he continued, loudly enough to cut the snickering off, "for my sins, the SHIELD liaison to the Avengers."

Darcy's mouth kicked in before her brain engaged. "And Supernanny needs a hand?"

Clint cackled with laughter and leaned in so he and the Widow – Agent Romanoff – could bump fists over the desk. Clearly, this was something she'd need to check on later when she...

"Hang on, I don't remember meeting Captain America."

***

Steve was home. Darcy could see the light on over his drawing table from the street. Holding onto her dignity for as long as possible, she climbed the stairs slowly to the third floor, took a deep breath, and knocked. 

And waited.

He was standing on the other side of the door girding his loins again. She could feel it. Keeping her expression as neutral as possible in case he lowered himself to peer through the spyhole, she started counting backwards from one hundred. In Spanish. Slowly. She gotten to seventy-two before he finally opened the damned door.

A raised hand shut his mouth and she walked past him into the apartment, still counting. At sixty-seven, she heard the door close and lock, pivoted on one heel, looked him right in the baby blues and snapped, "Why didn't you tell me?"

To his credit, he didn't pretend to misunderstand. "I wanted a chance to be Steve Rogers not Captain America. To be a person, not an icon." His mouth twisted into something not quite a smile and he looked as though his heart was breaking. "I didn't expect it would last, but while it did, I wanted it."

The huge head of mad Darcy'd been building up since leaving Agent Coulson's office deflated, the sudden absence leaving her feeling a little light-headed. "Okay. I get that."

Steve blinked. "But..."

"No buts." He looked so confused, she grinned. "Come on, it's not like you lied about who you are, you just left out some details about your job. Are you horked off I didn't tell you I'm with SHIELD?"

"Darcy..." Shaking his head, he walked over the window, turned, and tried again. "Darcy, I didn't tell you that I'm Captain America. That's kind of huge."

"Think highly of yourself there, Red-White-and-Blue Dude." When his mouth opened and closed a few times but no sound came out, she took pity on him. "Look, if I found out you had a wife and three kids in Long Island and I was your piece on the side, that would be huge. If you were a serial killer and softening me up before dicing me and storing me in your... well, you don't have a trunk the bike so lets say dropping the pieces in the sewer for the alligators, that would be huge."

"Darcy..."

She cut him off and crossed the apartment to stand in front of him. "I knew you were fucked up about your military service. So I assumed the wrong war; no big. Fucked up about war is fucked up about war and given the whole aliens invade Manhattan thing, there's enough PTSD to go around. The age difference doesn't matter because everyone knows time spent on ice doesn't count and I'm going to have so much fun helping you catch up."

"Darcy..." 

His heart pounded under her palm. "I found out you're a hero. That's cool. Maybe even cooler that _you_ didn't tell me. Your ass looks better in tights than mine; okay, I'm not thrilled about that but I like you, Steve. I like you a lot."

"Darcy..."

"Unless I'm not good enough for Captain America..."

 _So easy,_ she thought as he switched from confused to determined and captured her mouth. He tucked one hand under her ass and lifted so she wrapped her legs around his waist and let him carry her to the sofa. 

"You are," he said between kisses, "amazing. And smart. And funny. And gorgeous. And wise. And did I say gorgeous?"

"You did." She settled on his lap and sucked his earlobe into her mouth. He made a strangled noise and his hips bucked up and Darcy made a mental note about earlobes for later. "Say it again."

"You're gorgeous. I want to..." He shuddered. Gently pushed her mouth away from where she was nibbling along the line of his jaw. And took a deep breath.

Darcy sighed and let her head fall forward until her forehead rested against his. "But you're not going to, are you?"

"I don't think now is the right time, do you?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

She could convince him. Except... "No. You're right. Too much information, too fast. We need to gain a little equilibrium before we do anything we can't step back from." Too much risk right now he'd regret it in the morning and she was too smart to chance that no matter how much she wanted to strip him naked and ride him like a pony.

"There were times I thought you knew," Steve told her, lifting her off his lap and onto the sofa beside him. 

"I swear the red, white and blue afghan was a coincidence."

"Darcy, you never asked me for my last name."

"You never asked for mine."

"Because then you'd ask for mine."

Okay, she'd give him that. And maybe he wasn't entirely wrong. "You want to order a pizza?" she asked, snuggling into his shoulder. When he peered down at her, she shrugged. "Emotional content makes me hungry. And I had a huge day at work... which I can now tell you about because clearly..." Pulling away, she drove an elbow into his ribs. "...you know all about it what goes on at my job and oh my Thor, I just realized! You decided to date me because I kicked Hawkeye in the nuts?"

Steve blushed. "No... not only... It was more because..."

"Because I flashed my boobs at him?" When Steve blushed deeper, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck, Darcy shook her head. "Babe, that's so never..." Except maybe the whole Agent Barton and Agent Coulson doing the horizontal mamba thing wasn't common knowledge around SHEILD. It certainly wasn't a part of the rumour mill that had trickled down to probationary agent levels. Kills people with gummy bears, yes. Boning the best biceps in the triState area, no. Maybe Steve didn't know. If not, Darcy certainly wasn't going to out her new boss. 

"Babe?"

She matched his grin. "You got promoted up from dude. And speaking of promotions, this morning I was a probationary agent seeing a nice guy in construction and this afternoon, I'm the assistant liaison – in training – to the Avengers dating Captain America. One thing I can say for SHIELD, I love the opportunities for advancement." 

"Should I warn Director Fury to watch his back?

Darcy?"


	4. Broadway Babies Don't Sleep 'Til Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Agent Coulson is on light duty. My definition of light duty, not his. He _will_ try to overdo it. You will do what ever it takes, on my authority, to keep him from relapsing. I declared him dead once and I do not want to have to do it again. Do you understand?"

Monday morning found her, bright and early – well, overcast and early; the early part had been non-negotiable – in Director Fury's office. Darcy had to admit it was a pretty spiffy looking office, all chrome and glass, grey and black, with thick carpet under her boots and a huge bank of windows. There was a lot more visible tech and less visible paper than in Agent Coulson's office and it was unlikely anyone had ever fallen asleep on the black leather sofa – Agent Coulson's sofa had looked more like a refuge than a piece of furniture. Except that the desk was to one side, not backed against the window so the view of lower Manhattan could frame the person sitting behind it, the office seemed right out of a magazine spread.

Okay, the long black leather coat hanging behind the desk, not so much.

"First impressions, Ms. Lewis."

Darcy started and turned her attention to the man behind the desk. Most people probably thought that whole black on black on black wardrobe thing would make getting dressed a piece of cake but black came in a lot of different shades and the kind of monochrome the director had going took an eye for detail. An eye for detail. She bit her lip to keep from snickering.

"Of the office," he added. "I couldn't help but notice you looking around." _When most people keep their eyes on me._ It was some of the loudest subtext Darcy'd ever heard.

"It's a stage set. You use this office to impress the sort of people who'd be impressed by an office like this. Who wouldn't take you seriously without it. You work in it when you have to -- the desk is big and shiny but ultimately practical -- however, you do your actual work, the work that matters, somewhere else."

"Do I? As a general rule, Lewis, most junior agents called to my office don't take the time to study the decorating."'

"Why not?"

He blinked. And frowned. "Are you seriously asking me that?" He raised a hand to cut her off before she could answer. "Most junior agents called to my office are soiling their drawers."

There wasn't much Darcy could say to that. She settled on, "Oh."

"Oh?" To her surprise, Director Fury smiled broadly. It was the most terrifying expression she'd seen on him so far. "It never occurred to you to just tell me that it's a nice office, did it?"

If he hadn't wanted to know what she thought, why had he asked? "No, sir."

"Hill's right. Coulson deserves you." Fury sat back and visibly relaxed. "I called you in here this morning to define the parameters of your new job. Agent Coulson is on light duty. My definition of light duty, not his. He _will_ try to overdo it. You will do what ever it takes, on my authority, to keep him from relapsing. I declared him dead once and I do not want to have to do it again. Do you understand?

"Yes, but..."

His brows rose. "You have a question."

 _Lying about Agent Coulson's death and jerking Steve and Tony Stark around by the emotions was your best plan for getting them to work together? Seriously? And now you expect them to trust you?_ Nope. Bad idea. Also, three questions. On to plan B. "You just gave me permission to boss around my boss under the fairly broad parameter of keeping him alive; how do you know I won't abuse it?"

"Moving past the point that you both work for me, do you think for one moment that we don't have probationary agents under constant psychological observation? Half of you lot get guns and the other half get access to labs that would make a mad scientist jealous – we like to make sure that won't blow up in our faces. And when I say blow up, I mean literally blow the fuck up. By the time I say jump, I know exactly how high you'll get off the ground and how often I can say it before you consider switching sides."

Darcy rolled her eyes. "To be fair, I was in the bathroom."

"Get out of my office, Lewis."

"Yes, sir."

It turned out that Agent Sitwell was still her training officer.

"Agent Barton and Agent Romanova will see to it that Agent Coulson doesn't arrive here before noon which may save your ass, Lewis, because you have three clearance levels to rise before you're more than a minimum amount of help. Most agents do it in two years. Sometimes three. I want you done in two months. Three if something tries to take over the world again."

"Wow. Alien invasion gives me a whole extra month."

"Unless it's Doom. All he gets you is a chance to throw into the betting pool on when or if the Fantastic Four will actually show up. SHIELD was dealing with Doom when the Avengers Initiative was a mere gleam in Director Fury's eye. He's destructive but predictable. We took him down once by distracting him with an actress who looked superficially like Sue Storm. But..." Sitwell paused and pushed a Starkpad and the newest Starkphone across to her. "...that's all on the pad. I need you to sign off on everything in the level one file – read, watch, comprehend, send me confirmation for every section you finish. If you thought assisting Agent Coulson was going to be... blah blah hard work blah blah..."

Darcy stroked the edges of the Starkphone. Sleek and sexy and powerful, it looked like the same version Steve had. The big SHIELD icon suggested contact information had already been loaded. There were apps she didn't recognize – but given the age of her old phone, that was hardly surprising – and hey, Plants Vs Zombies! She'd played it obsessively in New Mexico. When Jane was elbow deep in physics way above her pay grade, it had been all that had kept her sane. 

She'd loved her old iPod for what was on it, not for the tech, because the best thing that could be said about the tech was that it was fully functional. If they'd handed her back her music on a new StarkPhone, she wouldn't have complained. Well, she'd have still complained because they had no business taking her iPod in the first place but a StarkPhone would have lessened the jackbooted bruising. And the StarkPad wasn't even the commercial version! Not with that much memory. Holy Thor, it had recognition security! Or security recognition. Whichever it was, it wasn't supposed to be available for months. Once the touch screen was keyed to her electrical field no one would be able to screw with her playlists! Well, SHIELD had probably built in a backdoor, they were spies after all, but no one else. Although, so far, only SHIELD had messed with her playlists. And it was so pretty... She trailed her fingers over its sleek, red and gold curves and finally gave into the temptation to rub her cheek against the edge of the casing.

"...weapon certified by the end of the week." When Darcy glanced up, both Agent Sitwell's brows were reaching for a non-existant hairline. "Did you need a cold shower before you head to the range, Agent Lewis?"

"If I said yes, would I be able to have one?"

"No."

"Then I'm good."

To Darcy's surprise, Steve was waiting just inside the door to the range.

"I had more actual training in stage presence than weapons," he said, his smile a little tentative. "Everything else was pretty much on the job. During the war, if I wasn't using my shield, I picked up whatever would cause the most damage and you don't have to be particularly accurate with a machine gun." He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. "And guns have changed. Not basically – point, shoot – but they're lighter and... uh, feel different. And Director Fury said I could use the SHEILD facilities, to upgrade my skillset."

Upgrade his skillset? He was Captain Freakin' America. Darcy grinned up at him. "Admit it, you wanted to spend time with me."

His ears darkened a bit, but there was nothing tentative about his smile. "That too."

"We live in the same building."

"I've been told you're going to be busy for a while."

Darcy turned on Agent Sitwell, and only barely resisted the urge to put her hands on her hips. "Did you warn him off? Because I have a father. Actually, no, I don't, but it's still not cool."

Sitwell rolled his eyes. "Everyone knows you're going to be busy for a while. There's an office pool on how long you'll last."

"On how long I'll last?"

"Assistants to Agent Coulson have never lasted long and previous agents didn't have your training schedule on top of their other responsibilities."

"He's on light duty."

"So I hear. You make it to the end of the month, a lot of money's going to change hands."

"You have a piece of the action, Agent Sitwell?" Darcy asked, putting her hand on Steve's chest to stop him from stepping forward. Actually, he'd only sort of leaned, she just liked having her hand on his chest.

"That's need to know, agent."

Of course he did. He wouldn't have told her otherwise. Agent Sitwell had done her evaluation and he knew how she'd respond to being told she couldn't do something. Her training officer informing her about the betting continued SHIELD's fine tradition of ethically dubious motivating speeches.

Sitwell tossed them both sets of ear protectors and held up a handgun. "This is a semi-automatic pistol developed by SHIELD R&D based on the Austrian Steyr M. It uses the Browning short recoil method with a linkless vertically dropping barrel. It has a double action pre-set trigger mechanism and a multi-stage safety system. This particular model weighs 725 grams, fires .357 SIG cartridges from a 20 round magazine, and comes with a mounted laser sight. Ear protectors on and get behind the line."

When they were ready, Sitwell snapped off three quick shots one handed, the little red dots on the targets obliterated each time.

Darcy took her ear protectors off in time to hear Steve say, "I realize that a weapon is useless hardware if you can't hit the target, but don't you think the laser sight is..."

"...cheating?" Darcy finished.

"It doesn't magically guide the bullet," Sitwell sighed. "It merely assists your aim. But it _can_ be a crutch. Given our time crunch, you'll start with the laser on to get the feel of the weapon and to start learning the muscle memory necessary for accuracy then we'll take it off. You need to be able to hit what you're shooting if the laser stops working."

"What if the gun jams?" Steve asked. "I mean, if you're factoring equipment failure in, why aren't you training her to fight with a rock?"

"We will."

"Oh." Darcy thought Steve was remarkably cute when he was nonplussed. "Okay."

"Right now, after you empty the magazine, we'll disassemble, clean, reassemble, until you know every part and where it goes. Once you begin working on that, I'll sign out another weapon for Captain Rogers. You'll have range access every morning this week from nine to eleven. Until I sign off on this weapon, there will be an agent on the range with you. It won't always be me. You'll have unlimited rounds, but you'll finish each session by disassembling and cleaning. And reassembling," he added as Darcy opened her mouth. "When the captain is signed off – and it will be before you as he..."

 _Is Captain Freaking America_ , Darcy filled into the pause.

"...has a significant head-start given his experience in the field – _if_ he's available, I'm fine with him acting as your safety. We're a little short handed right now."

Darcy looked at the pistol – all mat black and vaguely ominous – up at Steve – all helpful and buff – and at Agent Sitwell who was looking at his watch. "Is it too late to just join the secretarial pool?"

"Yes. And you'd still have to be signed off on the weapon."

"Wow. I bet no one forgets National Secretary's Day."

"Not more than once." He beckoned her forward. "If we could begin, Agent Lewis."

The shooting turned out to be less of a problem than the reassembling.

"This is not a piece of IKEA furniture, Lewis. There aren't supposed to be parts leftover."

Steve, on the other hand, got signed off on _semi-automatic pistol, 20 rounds center target, clean and reassemble under 5_ by the time the session was over. Once he got the hang of the minor changes, he had no trouble putting all twenty rounds through a hole the size of a Ritz Cracker. Which reminded Darcy she was starving, but she allowed herself to be distracted by large hands deftly manoeuvring small parts and applying that to more personal scenarios. Also, Steve Rogers shooting holes in paper targets was surprisingly hot.

Maybe not so surprising.

She was a little surprised when he didn't want to go to the cafeteria with her after they finished.

"Is it because everyone's all oh my Thor, it's Captain America?" she asked while they waited by the elevator.

"I think you're the only one who says oh my Thor."

"It's taking longer to catch on than I thought it would," Darcy admitted. "But is it the Captain America thing? Because I will tell them to cut it the hell out."

"No, it's because I've come to know Agent Coulson over the last few weeks and if he's agreed to stay out of the office until twelve, he'll be behind his desk at twelve oh one. And right now," he checked his watch, "it's eleven thirty-five. Five minutes to the mess... canteen... cafeteria..."

"Five minutes back from all of the above." She kind of loved watching his vocabulary adjust. "Maximum five minute wait for food and I can eat in ten."

"And talk to friends? And familiarize yourself with Agent Coulson's medical file?"

"Absolutely. Okay, no. Lunch from the vending machines it is." Stepping into the elevator, Darcy pushed the button for six instead of one and waggled her eyebrows at Steve. "Want to come see my office?"

He grinned. "Are you suggesting an assignation, Agent Lewis?"

"Well, the office is only a big alcove off a cubicle farm full of junior agents, but I'm game if you are."

"I wish..."

"Really?" She grabbed a handful of his shirt, the door pinged and they sprang apart.

Assistant Director Hill swept a measuring gaze from Darcy to Steve and back to Darcy. "Despoiling a national icon, Agent Lewis?"

"Not yet, ma'am."

The nearly invisible twitch at the corner of Hill's mouth made Darcy feel better about leaving Steve in the elevator with her.

On Friday, the alcove outside Agent Coulson's office had held a desk and a chair. It now held a desk and a chair plus three filing cabinets that gave her a little privacy from the cubicle farm and more computing power than a few third world countries. And probably Canada. Darcy decided to ignore the post-it note on her monitor. _THEY SAY PYSCH ADOPTED HIS LAST PA AS A MASCOT. RUN! GET AWAY WHILE YOU STILL CAN!_ She managed to hit the highlights of Agent Coulson's file, before the agent in question appeared.

He looked rested, less grey than he had on Friday. Since the evil-doers of the world had allowed the Avengers a weekend, Darcy hoped he spent it doing weekend things, like sleeping late. Or staying in bed, at least. Maybe not sleeping. As, _I hope you got further with your hot Avenger boyfriend than I did with mine_ would likely not go over well, Darcy followed him silently into his office.

He settled carefully into his chair, although none of the pain he obviously felt showed on his face. "Agent Lewis."

"Agent Coulson.

In front of her name _agent_ meant: Probationary for the next nine weeks although it seemed likely she'd have to work to screw it up given the fast track to a higher clearance she'd been tossed onto. And she was overjoyed that the probationary part was now silent because Probationary Agent Lewis had sounded so damned patronizing. In front of Coulson, _agent_ meant: Legendary. It seemed no one had been surprised when he'd survived a metaphysical spear through his body wielded by an ancient, entirely bugfucked and, according to the Hulk by way of Steve, puny god. Thrilled, overjoyed, grateful? Yes. Surprised? No. 

"Agents Harris and Lankowski seemed confused about why your grandmother had a potbellied pig in the kitchen," Coulson observed, not entirely unexpectedly. 

"The kids who own Arwen are gas molecules. Sometimes Nana takes her for a few days to give her a break."

"Your grandmother runs a home spa for potbellied pigs?"

"Pig."

"Of course. Singular." He opened his briefcase, pulled out an actual beige file folder, and slid it across the desk toward her. "These are the parameters you're to use in order to do triage on my inbox. Given your clearance level, they're fairly broad right now." His brows went up in unison with Darcy's hand. "Yes?"

"Email programs come with filters. Except..." She frowned. "...I'm guessing _it must have got caught in my spam filter_ is not an excuse you can actually use so everything has to be eyes on."

"Good guess. There's also a printout of the Avengers appointments for the next month. Draw up a spread sheet, flag anything that looks like trouble. I've included a list of the forms the Avengers are most likely to use, including a few specific to the Avengers; you need to know them. Right now, I need to sign off on every form they fill out but, in time, you'll sign off and file the basics. We'll go over what constitutes _basic_ concerning the Avengers later. Read everything you have clearance for and keep up to it as your clearance level rises. I'm meeting at one with Alex Mirian, SHIELD Comptroller, in conference room seven, at three with Dr. Van Husen of R &D, here. You won't be required in either meeting. That won't always be the case. Medical has cleared me for only two meetings a day so when the calls come in, and they will, make a list. We'll go over it together and create a schedule; you'll send out confirmation emails before you leave. You should be able to do a rough schedule for my approval without my initial input by the end of the week." Both hands flat against the desk, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "And I would very much love a coffee."

According to the file Agent Sitwell had given her, before his death Coulson'd had a caffeine addiction that made her morning jet fuel look like camomile tea. Then he'd spent two months in hospital -- fortunately on the good meds while going through caffeine withdrawal -- and the month after that on contra-indicated medications. He'd taken the last of those yesterday.

Darcy picked up the file folder. "On it, Boss!" Those previous assistants had clearly been high on the wuss scale. So far, nothing Agent Coulson had asked of her seemed too onerous.

There was a StarkTech coffee maker in the break room. It didn't look like any coffee maker Darcy'd ever seen but it said coffee maker on it in shiny red and gold letters so... Four varieties of beans had been loaded into hoppers at one end, and a spout protruded from the other. It seemed to be hooked into the building's water supply, so Darcy assumed there was both a reservoir and a heating element somewhere in the middle. The power switch was obvious but turning it on did merely illuminated a small red LED. Pushing, prodding, swearing, and smacking did nothing. Darcy couldn't shake the impression it was laughing at her.

"Two of Stark's techs put it in about three weeks ago," a junior agent said from the doorway. 

Right about the time Coulson had been released into the brand new medical facilities at Stark Tower, Darcy realized. Two weeks before he'd made it back to the office. Delaying sex had given her and Steve a lot of time to talk. 

"No one has been able to figure out how it works. We're still going down to the coffee shop in the lobby. Agent Coulson always ran a tab," he added as Darcy went past him. "They say he single-handedly stopped a coup in Columbia just to ensure a steady supply of beans."

Fifteen minutes later, breathing a little heavily, Darcy put a large coffee and a blueberry muffin on Agent Coulson's desk.

He looked at the cup. He looked at her. He looked at the cup again, muscles tensed as though expecting someone to physically stop him from reaching for it.

"It's decaf with a shot of regular in it," Darcy told him. "Even a regular coffee, after you've been clean for so long, would cause your heart to race which, all things considered, could possibly kill you. I'm not supposed to let that happen. The mud you drank before, well, I suspect being in the same room with it would kill most people. If you want to get back to that level of caffeination, you're going to have to work up to it slowly and carefully. I'm not sure it's a great idea since caffeine headaches on ops without a Starbucks must be a bitch, but not my call and since you're working with Tony Stark these days, probably not even a factor. Oh, and the muffin's from Cora, Boss, she's glad you're back." 

Agent Coulson's fingers curled around the cup. "You clearly put some thought into this."

"Well, I _was_ a barrista at the campus coffee shop for thirteen days."

"Thirteen days?" He slid the cup closer.

"Apparently you can't call a pretentious dumbass a pretentious dumbass if they have tenure." She shrugged. "Who knew?"

On her way back to her desk, her brand new StarkPhone pinged an incoming text. It was from Clint.

::good call on the coffee::

Darcy rolled her eyes as she set the phone down next to the ergonomic keyboard and muttered, "Was he watching in the ceiling or what?"

::yes.::

"Good ears."

::lipreader, sniper thing::

He hadn't had to tell her that. She wondered if she'd passed a kind of test with the coffee and was now officially part of the take care of Coulson team. Or if he just _really_ liked girls who beat him up. "You know Mythbusters proved that structural air vents are neither strong enough nor secured well enough to keep you from crashing through the ceiling even if they were big enough for an adult to crawl through. Which they aren't."

::thats what they want you 2 think::

When she sat down, Coulson's inbox held 972 messages. By the time he left for his first meeting, the number had risen to 1154. Most of them were internal. A fair number were bullshit. Darcy tightened his filters. Well, technically, she sent the specs of what she wanted to the Code Monkeys, but the result was the same.

The Avengers' schedule was a mess. Wednesday at two, Tony had been booked to be in three separate places. From what Darcy knew about Tony Stark, she wasn't positive that was a mistake -- or impossible -- but she flagged it just in case.

Steve had visits confirmed in seven children's hospitals across the country -- confirmed by AD Hill before Agent Coulson had come back to work -- but while there'd been an agent assigned to accompany him, no one had worked out travel arrangements. Darcy suspected they might be more complicated than showing up wherever SHIELD kept the jets and asking for a lift. As they were expecting Steve in Chicago at 10AM Tuesday -- and that would be the tomorrow that was Tuesday -- she called Transport, gave them the itinerary, and told them to arrange it. _I'm calling from Agent Coulson's office_ greased a lot of wheels.

Then she called Steve. No one had told him either. 

"It's not that I mind," he sighed. "I mean, it's short notice but it's visiting sick kids and believe me, I know they can use all the distraction they can get, but it'd be nice to be asked instead of being treated like a dancing monkey again."

"They'll ask from now on."

"That's not something you can guarantee, Darcy."

Darcy hit send on the system wide memo she'd just composed. "Actually, yeah, I can."

Someone had scrawled "Denied!" across everything Clint and Natasha had been asked to do -- Darcy had to admit she was impressed by the StarkPad's handwriting integration -- and no one wanted Dr. Banner to do anything but keep calm. 

There was an Avenger specific sex pollen form. Darcy considered that for a moment then made a mental note to mention to Steve that he should always carry lube. Just in case. After another moment, she realized she needed to teach him to use his camera phone.

Twenty-seven people wanted a meeting with Agent Coulson. Immediately.

"When I say immediately, Agent, I expect you to schedule it immediately."

"Wow. Great disguise, Director Fury." Darcy cocked her head to one side. "I never would have believed you could pull off a five seven, white guy with both eyes. I guess that's why you get the big spy bucks."

He leaned forward, fists on the desk. "What the hell are you talking about, Probationary Agent?"

Darcy smiled. "Schedule it immediately is applicable only to Director Fury. If you are not Director Fury but are instead Senior Agent Cameron as you appear to be then you'll be slotted into Agent Coulson's schedule at Agent Coulson's discretion." 

"Coulson will hear about this!"

"Yes, sir, he will, as it's my job to tell him." She thought she'd kept the "you dick" tag out of her voice but as a junior agent appeared over the row of filing cabinets to give her a thumbs up, maybe not.

At five thirty she sat down in Agent Coulson's office to review the day and work out his schedule. 

"Cameron wants to borrow Barton for a mission in Beruit. Not going to happen. I'll send an email, I don't need to meet with him."

"They say you once took down a Russian weapons ring by email."

"By text. Singular." The corner of his mouth twitched. "Nice catch on Captain Roger's transport."

At six, Clint showed up and escorted Coulson out of the office. They could call it what they wanted, but Darcy knew an escort when she saw one. 

"Finish the schedule and go home," Coulson told her, pausing by her desk, fingers white around the head of his cane. "Baring emergencies, Captain America will be away for the next three days; spend some time with him while you can. Death helps you prioritize," he added in response to her eyebrows. "While this will always be a 24/7 job, sometimes we save the world and sometimes we have a quiet evening with the reason we save the world." 

Clint, standing behind Coulson's left shoulder, close enough he was probably pressed lightly against the other man's body from shoulder to hip, leaned forward and whispered into Coulson's ear.

He sighed. "Yes, you're my reason." His response was exaggerated but entirely sincere. "Good night, Agent Lewis."

"Good night, Boss. Clint."

"Night, Darcy. Tell Cap, I said he should... Ow!"

"I'm sorry. Did my cane just hit your shin?"

"All I was going to say was..."

"No."

"But..."

"No."

***

"It was cute." Darcy snuggled up against Steve's side, her tablet on her lap as she dealt with a few things that had to be finished before morning even if they could be done at home. "But they're so married."

"For about six weeks. I guess that's about a couple of weeks before you started with SHIELD."

"What?" 

"They've been together for years but Clint proposed pretty much right after Phil came off the..." Steve waved a hand. "...tube down the throat thing. First day Phil could put on a suit, Pepper -- that's Pepper Potts, Tony's girl." He frowned. "Sorry. Woman. Anyway, Pepper arranged for a Justice of the Peace and Nat stood for Clint and I stood for Phil."

Darcy closed her mouth. She'd previously thought the phrase "her jaw dropped" was just that, a phrase. Apparently not. "You stood for Phil? Coulson? My boss? At his gay wedding?"

"He has a kind of Captain America thing. It's mostly not embarrassing anymore."

"Captain America stood for Agent Coulson at his gay wedding to Hawkeye? Seriously?"

Steve twisted around to face her, hands warm on her shoulders. "Please tell me you don't have a problem with their... choices."

And there went her jaw again. "Do I have a problem with it? Me? No! I really most sincerely do not have a problem with my boss and Clint doing the matrimonial mambo. I may, in fact, have a few fantasies about it, but, my point is, you're... well, _you_. You're from the forties. And the military. And neither of those backgrounds is exactly welcoming to alternative lifestyles."

"We think we didn't have homosexuals in the forties?"

He sounded disappointed so, rather than a snappy comeback, she kept her voice level and said, "I think it was considered criminal deviance and your opinion on it was likely formed by that."

His mouth twisted into something not quite a smile. "Before the serum, I got into a lot of fights and I got called a pansy because of my size at least half the time. I don't like bullies and I didn't want to become one for any reason. And Darcy, being in the military and being at war are two different things. War burns away the unimportant, distills people down to whether or not they can be counted on in a firefight." He shrugged. "It might've helped that I met Clint during a war. A short war, but a war."

"So the whole gay thing doesn't bother you?"

"Are you kidding me? I'm terrified every time I see two men showing affection in public that they're going to get the shi... stuffing kicked out of them."

"So when when you're in public with Coulson and Clint you're annoyingly over protective, aren't you?"

He sagged against the sofa cushions and tucked her back under his arm. "Pretty much, yeah." She felt him stiffen. "Wait a minute. Fantasies?"

"Sorry." Darcy patted him on thigh, close enough to his inseam to make him twitch. "Not at that point in our relationship yet, big guy."

***

Tuesday was a repeat of Monday only she got a call from Steve before he left...

"Please don't say anything about Phil having a Captain America thing. I shouldn't have mentioned it."

...and she didn't leave the office until nine fifteen in a valiant but futile effort to catch up.

Wednesday was like Tuesday only later.

Thursday started with a delay to haul Sam's orange ass back up four flights of stairs, segued into a big puddle of vomit on the subway, became Agent Sitwell wondering how she could possible be a worse shot after three days of practice, and ended with a truly horrific egg salad sandwich at the first lunch all week she'd managed to eat with friends.

"Did you see that episode of Buffy where they had to take care of the eggs and Xander boiled his and the egg turned out to be a mind controlling demon?"

Lori hadn't, Kevin had. No surprise.

Darcy pushed her tray away. "Well, that's what I think they made this sandwich out of."

When Agent Coulson called her into his office after his meeting with Dr. Lee from Psych -- and Darcy wasn't even a little surprised SHIELD had so many shrinks on staff -- she assumed it had to do with the stack of forms still un-filed on her desk. To her surprise, he shoved another folder across to her and said, "Field trip. I need Stark's signature on this today."

"Don't you live with him, Boss?"

"Same building, not with. I need it as soon as possible, I was told not to spike my blood pressure, and I believe you're supposed to keep me alive. Go."

"Gone."

No surprise that the taxis lingering about in front of the building were on SHIELD contracts. 

The area around Stark Tower had been some of the most heavily damaged during the attacks. One building had been demolished, too structurally compromised to save, one had been circled with scaffolding and barricades plastered with danger signs, and one, directly across from the tower, was still missing nearly two full floors of windows, the glass replaced by clear plastic wrap. It should have been a reminder of terror except that the streets were full of New Yorkers getting on with things, bitching about the construction crews taking up space and about the tourists who still came to gawk and stand blocking the sidewalk taking pictures, oblivious to... well, to New Yorkers getting on with things. 

Above the street, on the plastic covered windows, someone from inside the building had summed up the battle with spray paint: ALIENS SUCK. AVENGERS RULE.

The top of Stark Tower still looked like a broken tooth but the lobby was all dark marble and pale wood and a gorgeous blonde sitting behind a desk the size of Darcy's old apartment. She looked up and flashed a perfect smile as Darcy approached. "How may I help you, Agent Lewis?"

 _I don't even begin to understand the technology,_ Steve had said, _but Jarvis identifies you as you come in the the door and if he considers you a threat, you won't make it as far as the desk._

"Agent Coulson needs Mr. Stark's signature so, bottom line, I need Mr. Stark."

"To your right, elevator ten."

"Elevator ten has a _to Tony Stark_ button?"

The perfect smile reappeared. "I'm not at liberty to say."

"Okay then. Thank you." 

Elevators five, six, eleven and twelve had out of order signs on them. Elevator ten waited, doors open. They closed the moment Darcy stepped inside and, as the elevator began to move a British accented voice said, "Mr. Stark is in his workshop, Agent Lewis. I can't guarantee you'll be permitted access."

"Jarvis?" Steve was right. It was impossible not to look up. 

"Yes, Agent Lewis."

"Steve talks about you all the time. He says you're swell..." Which had given Darcy a bad case of the giggles. "...and that you've really helped bring him up to speed on what he's missed. It's so cool to finally meet you."

"I am pleased to meet you as well, Agent Lewis." Jarvis' voice seemed warmer. More like a person, not at all like a machine. "Captain Rogers speaks highly of you also."

"Really?" She could feel her cheeks heat up and wondered if Jarvis saw the blush or if he noted the rise in her temperature.

"The captain was torn about keeping his other identity a secret from you and he appreciated your reaction. We all did. I believe Agent Barton referred to you as a keeper."

"Apparently, Agent Barton is fond of women who can beat him up."

"I have observed that, yes."

She could hear the smile in his voice which was both weird and wonderful as he didn't have anything to smile with. 

"At this moment, Mr. Stark's workshop is unlocked. If you move quickly, you may be able to gain access before he instructs me to lock it."

"Is he likely to do that?"

"It is his usual reaction if he notices the elevator's arrival. Although I wouldn't have brought you to this level without cause, without one of eight access codes, you will be unable to enter."

Darcy counted them off on her fingers and came up with seven -- Steve, Clint, Natasha, Dr. Banner, Ms. Potts, Colonel Rhodes, and Agent Coulson. "He hasn't given the Hulk his own set of codes, has he?"

"One set is in reserve for Thor when he returns and I would very much appreciate you not mentioning a set for the Hulk in his hearing."

"Deal." She fist-bumped the elevator wall.

"I have raised the decibel level of his music enough it may cover your arrival. Good luck."

"Thanks, Jarvis. You rock."

"And roll, Agent Lewis."

When the elevator doors opened she ran for the workshop, pushing the workshop door open only enough to slide in. She couldn't identify what particular piece of heavy metal, head banging had covered her arrival but it was loud enough she could feel the vibration in her chest. Tony Stark's legs were sticking out from under... _something_ and the cognitive parts of Tony Stark had clearly not yet realized she was there.

Something hard poked her in the hip.

"Well, hello. You must be Dummy." Grinning broadly, Darcy held out her hand. Dummy stopped poking her in the hip, set his claw against her fingers, and they shook solemnly. Then he backed up and whirred, claw cocked, projecting the same willingness to please as her Uncle Stan's border collie. Her grin actually broadened. "Steve's sketch doesn't do you justice. You're much cuter in person. Listen, Agent Coulson sent me to get Mr. Stark's signature on this." She held up the file so he could see it. "Could you get Mr. Stark's attention for me."

Dummy cocked his head in the other direction for a moment, then wheeled across the workshop, grabbed the cuff of greasy jeans in his claw and yanked. As Tony Stark flew out from under the... _whatever_ , the music stopped so suddenly the silence was nearly deafening.

"God damn it, Dummy! This had better not be..."

Darcy knew the instant he saw her. For a moment, 100 percent of Tony Stark's attention was focused on her, making her knees actually feel weak. Then the moment passed, the bulk of his attention shifted away, and he said, "What the hell are you doing in here?"

"Agent Coulson sent me to get a signature."

"So you're the assistant that's keeping Agent alive. Good job. Nice boobs. I'd compliment him on his choice but yours are not the boobs he's looking for. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do." He tried to slide back under the... _whatsit_ but Dummy still held his jeans. "Are you malfunctioning again? Because I could replace you with one of those beer can grabby things."

Dummy whined and hung on.

"What did you do to my robot, Assistant Boobs?"

Darcy rolled her eyes. "First, nothing. Second, respect the boobs; you should defy gravity with their elan. Third, there's a very good chance Clint will crazy glue a Nerf arrow between Senior Agent Cameron's eyes if I'm gone too long so scrawl your T. Stark on the dotted line and you can go back to the... _thing-a-ma-thing_."

"Thing-a-ma-thing?" Tony jerked his jeans from Dummy's grip and surged up onto his feet. "Okay, first..."

"Darcy?"

Tony Stark forgotten, Darcy whirled around to face the door. "Jane?" She staggered back a step, arms full of babbling astrophysicist.

"I heard your messages when I accidentally downloaded them onto Jarvis' mainframe and I was going to call you back except it occurred to me that perhaps I'd been trapped into linear thinking by the word bridge and I should actually be considering the information we have in the manner of an intergalactic phone call taking into account that we're not talking about anything on the usual end of the electromagnetic spectrum and blah blah science science blah blah..."

Darcy waited until she ran down, then said, "You look good." Inside the oversized flannel shirt and men's khakis there was a little meat on Jane's bird bones. "You must be remembering to eat." 

"I'm doing some work with Dr. Banner," Jane told her. "There's definitely a gamma radiation tie. He likes to eat regular meals, says I wouldn't like him when he's hungry." Tony made a choking noise and Jane leaned around Darcy to add, "And he gets pretty cranky when someone forgets they promised to recalibrate the x-ray diffractometer too."

Tony ignored her, pointed a grease stained finger at Darcy. "You're Jane Foster's Darcy. So you're Steve's Darcy. So why the hell didn't you tell me that instead of pretending you were Agent Agent's Assistant Boobs?"

"I am also Agent Coulson's assistant." Given Jane's background sputtering, Darcy dropped the boobs from the title. "Not my fault you jumped to the conclusion that was all I was."

"I don't jump to conclusions," Tony sniffed.

"Please." Darcy sniffed right back at him. "You threw yourself on it like it was a live grenade."

"Don't you have something for me to sign?"

To her surprise, he read it before signing. "You know," he said as he put pen to paper, "you should think about putting out. Your boy is way too tense. If you know what I mean."

"Oh my Thor!" Darcy ignored Jane's squeak. "You think Steve's a virgin!"

There was a greasy thumb print beside his signature when Tony handed the paperwork back. "I think," he said smugly, "I spend more time with him than you do."

Darcy snorted as she slid the file into her messenger bag. "I think you're forgetting what his ass looks like in that uniform and that for over a year he was probably the only straight guy touring America with a dozen chorus girls. Thank you for your co-operation, Mr. Stark. Come on, Jane, walk me out and Jarvis can remind you of when you're going to agree to meet me for lunch."

"I'd be happy to Agent Lewis."

Back at SHIELD, Darcy stared at the StarkTech coffee maker. Thought about Jarvis. About Dummy. Took a deep breath. Said, "I need ten ounces of regular and one ounce of espresso mixed, please."

LEDs she hadn't noticed before lit up and the coffee maker hummed happily as it ground and heated and poured a perfect cup of jet fuel into the cobalt blue mug under the spout. She took a sip, smiled, and patted the gleaming red casing. "What a smart boy you are. Now, I know this is a tad insulting but it's for medical reasons. Ten ounces of decaf, one ounce of regular, please." She slid Agent Coulson's brand new Hawkeye mug under the spout -- because it was slightly creepy when he drank out of a mug with her boyfriend's face on it -- and said as it began to fill, "I shall call you Juan, after Juan Valdez. We're going to be good friends."

When she got back to her desk, there was a package on it and note in Tony Stark's unmistakable scrawl. Mostly unmistakable because of the greasy thumbprint. 

_Dear Steve's Darcy: Consider this an apology. You may apply the sentiment where it's most needed. Ditto the tech. Hugs and kisses, Tony._

The taser was, not surprisingly, red and gold. Darcy spent ten happy minutes reading the specs then slid it reluctantly into her messenger bag and went back work. Clint had not crazy glued a Nerf arrow between Senior Agent Cameron's eyes while she was gone. He'd shot him in the ass. Six times. The junior agents assigned to the cubicle farm passed the hat and left a cheesecake in the air vents.

"I was barely gone for ninety minutes," she muttered, and began to clear the seventy-three accumulated phone messages.

Darcy was sloshing by the time she got home and although Juan had done his best, she still fell asleep with her head pillowed on her phone listening to Steve talk about the heartbreaking pluck of a ten year old cancer patient.

At seven ten Friday morning, she was at her desk completing the written portion of the range safety test. At 10:20 Agent Sitwell signed off on _semi-automatic pistol, 20 rounds center target, clean and reassemble under 5_. At 10:45 she was at the armoury signing out her _personal weapon, SHIELD use only, not to be taken from the premises until training complete._

"Seriously? Then why did I have to get signed off on it right away?"

"Seriously?" The agent passed over both a waist and a shoulder holster. "Who the hell knows. Ours is not to reason why and all that shit."

At 11:05, she realized that meant the junior agents in the cubicle farm were all armed and couldn't decide if that was comforting or really fucking scary.

At 11:35 she was in the coffee shop off the lobby waiting for her regular order. Juan was great but he didn't do muffins. It was as crowded as she'd ever seen it and she tried not to keep checking her phone for the time as she waited in a cluster of agents for her order to be filled. Under the circumstances, eavesdropping was practically obligatory.

"...in the Avengers."

"Yeah, well, you can't really trust him now can you," a tall skinny agent muttered. "I mean did he even try to fight it or did he just roll over and do what he was told? You go bad that easy once and it could happen any time. Hey Hawkeye, let's take over the world. Sure, why not. And Stark? Jesus, an ego in armour. That's a security disaster waiting to hapPAWK!"

Darcy slid her brand new StarkTech taser back into her bag. "I'm going to need form P-277, being a dumbass in public, filled out and on Agent Coulson's desk by two." She picked up her tray with the two coffee, two muffins, stepped over the twitching agent, and headed out the door. 

One thing she had to say about working for SHIELD, the hours might suck but she definitely loved the toys...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terrifyingly, given the length, I had things that still just didn't fit in this chapter. There will be a least one timestamp. Oy. I used to be able to write short...


	5. First We Take Manhattan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I guess what I'm trying to say is that it totally sucks you woke up and everyone you knew was gone, but I'm glad you woke up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to the appalling length of time it's taking me to get this done, I decided to post the chapter when I hit a natural break rather than extend the wait time thus making a simple, funny "five things" seven chapters long. I say again, Oy.

"Running? With you? Before breakfast?" Darcy twisted just far enough to be able to look up into Steve's face. "You don't _look_ like you're kidding. But then, who knew Captain America would have the world's best poker face?"

"You thought we played Go Fish?" Steve swung the backpack full of cans up onto his shoulders and grinned, the grin that made him look less like a national icon and more like a guy in his twenties with a wicked sense of humour. Okay, a guy in his twenties who could heft all the heavy bits of groceries home without breaking a sweat but there had to be some benefit to dating a super soldier. Besides the obvious. Which she still hadn't been able to take advantage of. "Last time we had a couple of days to kill in camp, I won seventy-two dollars and three pairs of socks but lost my meat ration to P..." 

And the grin disappeared. Darcy walked quietly beside him, shoulder occasionally brushing his arm. 

He didn't speak until they reached their building then he took a deep breath, let it out slowly and said, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. You'll talk about it when you can." She put one bag of groceries down and touched his arm. The muscles were still locked tight and trembling slightly. 

He looked up at the sky then down at her, but she knew he wasn't really seeing her. "The docs at SHIELD say when I can talk about it, I'll have accepted they're gone. I _know_ they're gone. It's all gone." His mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Save the world, and the world changes."

"To quote the one relevant point made by most useless prof I ever had, change is constant. Change spent while frozen solid, doubly so. Okay, that last bit was mine," she added as Steve's brows rose. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that it totally sucks you woke up and everyone you knew was gone, but I'm glad you woke up."

"Most of the time, so am I." He cupped her cheek gently with one large hand then jumped as a cabbie hit his horn.

"Kiss her, you mook!"

"They still say mook?"

Darcy tilted her face up. "Less with the etymology more with the doing what he suggested. _Really_ glad you woke up," she added a moment later. "My ice cream is melting."

His tips of his ears reddened. "Is that a..."

"No." She hefted the grocery bag she still held. "My ice cream is really melting." 

They dropped off her groceries first --

"I can't believe the price of these things. You need to learn how to cook real food."

"Hey! Lean Cuisine is real food."

\-- then she gathered up her laptop, her tablet, the stack of actual paper files Agent Coulson had an unnatural fondness for, and they went to Steve's apartment where she settled on the sofa and he put together pastrami sandwiches. 

It had come as a surprise that after every section of Agent Sitwell's fast track to the next clearance level there'd been questions testing her comprehension. Brilliantly succinct, they made her wonder if the agent had really wanted to be a teacher and, if so, what had brought him to SHEILD. It hadn't taken a lot of reading between the lines -- and even less interaction with agents -- to realize that the recruiting SHIELD had done after the Chitauri was the exception, not the rule. People with certain skills found their way to SHIELD -- one way or another -- a high percentage so emotionally broken no other agency would have touched them with a ten foot pole.

 _Well, not unless that pole had explosives strapped to the end of it,_ she amended, closing the limited file she'd been given on the Black Widow and making grabby hands at the sandwich Steve held out to her. "Oh my Thor," she sighed through the tongue orgasms of the first bite. "Best pastrami sandwich ever."

"Made with love. It's what my mother used to say," he explained after Darcy'd finished choking and they'd cleaned up the bits of half chewed pastrami she'd spit across the room. "And I don't think you're going to find love in a box of frozen chicken and rice."

It was funny. He blushed at ice cream innuendo that hadn't been innuendo but when he talked about love and his mother, he just looked like Steve. Sincere. Gorgeous. How did he look so gorgeous with mustard on his cheek? Darcy put her sandwich down, grabbed a handful of his shirt, straddled his thighs, and licked his cheek clean.

 _That_ , he blushed at.

"Darcy..."

"Mmmmm."

"You're making it really hard..."

"Yay!"

"...to treat you with the respect you deserve." When she moved away he caught her before she could go very far and sighed. "There are dames... girls... _women_ a fellow can..." 

He frowned and Darcy knew he was sorting through his updated vocabulary for words he could use with a woman he "respected". Unfortunately, he'd learned a little too much of his new vocabulary from Tony and Clint and as there probably wasn't a lot of difference between it and what he'd picked up on the street or from his army buddies, she was afraid this might take a while. 

After a long moment he defaulted to: "...can have physical relations with..."

Darcy had a sudden evil urge to listen in on the extremely awkward conversation little Steve had no doubt had with his mother.

"...and there's nothing wrong with that, with them.... I mean, hell, that year on the road with the chorus, some of them were..." This blush was the deepest yet. Captain America did not fuck and tell. Darcy made a note of that. She planned on having it come in handy later. He cleared his throat, squared his shoulders and met her gaze. "But there are women, other kinds of women, you want to get to know. You want to get to know them beyond what you want to do with their bodies. Although not _do with_ like that. You'll do it together, as equals." He was starting to look a bit panicked and if Darcy hadn't been getting just a little tired of being cock-blocked by the 1940's she might have rescued him. "Once you've done it you can't not have done it so you're always distracted from getting to know the person by thinking about it. I just..." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "...I want to learn more about you without being distracted by that. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Darcy cocked her head and grinned. "Babe, I don't think _you_ understand what you're saying. But if you want to wait, I respect your decision."

"Yeah..." He sighed and rolled his eyes. "...I should be saying that, shouldn't I?"

"Welcome to the new millennium where no means no, no matter who says it." She grinned and kissed him. "And as much as I would love to explain to Agent Sitwell on Monday that I still hadn't finished section twenty-two, level one because I spent the weekend testing certain recuperative properties of the supersoldier serum..." Resting her forehead against his chest, she frowned thoughtfully, "...which I might actually even get credit for because I'm betting that's one test SHIELD hasn't performed yet although given SHIELD..."

"No."

When she looked up, Steve seemed a little shell shocked, blue eyes wide. "No, SHIELD hasn't...?"

"Just _no_."

"Okay."

"And please, don't suggest it to anyone."

"Lips are sealed. Although..."

"Darcy."

"Fine." She settled back beside him on the couch. "But if SHIELD brings it up, I'd better be the name on your P1-7A."

"On my what?"

"Testing the Intimate Properties of Chemical Enhancements, Purposefully Applied."

"There's a form for that?"

"There are nine levels of P1-7A. You'd be amazed at how many ways you can purposefully apply a chemical enhancement."

"I don't think I want to know."

"There's fourteen levels of P1-7B, Accidentally Applied."

His eyes were wide again. "I really don't want to know."

"Yeah." Darcy picked up her tablet. "And some of them are pretty intimate _before_ testing starts. I'm getting the distinct impression SHIELD agents don't get out much. And speaking of that, I really need to get back to work."

Steve tugged the tablet from her hand and replaced it with her sandwich. "Eat first."

The second bite tasted even better than the first, especially since she got to swallow it. "I can't believe I'm wasting most of a Saturday with you on work."

"I like it." He finished his first sandwich and patted the NY Times, still folded on the coffee table. "You work, I'll read; it'll be normal."

He looked so thrilled by the concept of _normal_ that Darcy scrubbed crumbs off her mouth on her sleeve and kissed him again. "Nothing wrong with normal. And it certainly beats the alternative. Oh come on!" she snarled as Star Spangled Man rang out from Steve's phone on the kitchen counter. "That wasn't a cue for the crazies!"

Which was when her phone started playing Will Smith's Men in Black theme. "He's assembling, Boss." At least she assumed that was why Steve had just run for his bedroom, snapping orders into the phone. 

"I didn't doubt it. There'll be a car for you at the front of your building in ten." 

"Ten?" Darcy started packing the contents of the coffee table into her backpack. "Steve will..."

"Captain Rogers has his own transportation to the site," Coulson told her as Steve emerged Cap'd up except for his cowl. 

"Iron Man's picking me up from the roof, are you...?"

"I'm good." She kissed him, because, duh, Captain America, and he was gone.

***

"Cadman! Dude! Long time!" Darcy slid into the seat and barely had the door closed before Cadman injected the SUV into an impossibly small hole in traffic and floored it. 

"I suggest you fasten your seatbelt, Agent Lewis."

"An excellent suggestion, Agent Cadman." It took a minute, giving all the flinging around, and Darcy took advantage of the bouncing to glance into the back of the SUV. "What are we hauling?"

"Containment units."

"For?"

"For whatever's attacking this week, I assume. Now if you don't mind, agent, I need to concentrate."

In spite of all the experience they'd had, the New York reaction to an alien invasion, Doombots, squidish, or whatever, bore no similarity to evacuating the area in an orderly fashion. First they took pictures, then they gridlocked, then they all got on their phones and complained about the gridlock until the NYPD's special Catastrophic Traffic Task Force cleared them out. Credit where credit was due, the CTTF had it down to a science but it still made driving _to_ a site a little... difficult.

And Cadman, Darcy realized, pulling out her tablet with a grin, was trying to sound like Agent Coulson. 

She was still grinning when she emerged into a clump of SHIELD agents, half of whom turned to strip the back of the SUV like Wall-mart shoppers on Black Friday. The area was a madhouse of shouting, high pitched whining, Iron Man's repulsors, screaming, and the swoosh of Cap's shield. Darcy spotted Coulson over by a blue van and headed toward him.

"Obviously she's here because she's fucking Captain America."

Darcy hadn't heard the question but the answer had been said loudly enough she'd clearly been intended to hear it. She turned, smiled sweetly at the scowling agent, glanced past him at Steve about twenty meters away taking out three flying who-the-hell-knew with one long, arcing throw of his shield, and said, "I wish. But he respects me and I had to make it on merit when I'd much rather have made it for tapping..." She ducked as bits of debris from an exploding who-the-hell-knew sprayed the area. "...that. If you have work to do, agent, I suggest you get to it."

"You don't give me orders..."

"And she didn't. But she made a damned good suggestion." 

As AD Hill was behind her, Darcy had no idea of her expression but the agent blanched and ran. 

"And you, Lewis. Take your own advice."

"Yes, ma'am!"

His expression unreadable, although he had to have heard the exchange, Agent Coulson motioned her past him into the van. From the outside, it looked like a mid-90s Dodge Grand Caravan -- invisible on nearly any street in North America. On the inside, it was pure James Bond. There was a satellite feed of the entire scene, a bright purple H noting Hawkeye's rooftop position. There were individual feeds of each Avenger, an agent barricaded behind equipment in a corner muttering about signal strength, and what sounded like a police scanner. 

Agent Sitwell sat in front of the monitors. He glanced up as Agent Coulson dropped into the other seat, acknowledged her presence, and returned to tracking the battle. 

"You're observing only, Agent Lewis." Coulson handed her an earpiece. "Your mic is off. If you have something to say, say it to me and is that pastrami?" His stomach growled.

"Yes." She pulled Steve's second sandwich, hastily wrapped in her notes on section twelve, out of her backpack and handed it to him. "We were eating when the call came. Seemed a shame to waste it."

"I'm still on light duty," Coulson pointed out when Sitwell shot him a look, "and I still have seventeen pounds to gain before I'm back to my pre-death weight."

"And you get mean when the director doesn't let you work," Sitwell muttered. 

"And that," Coulson agreed blandly, taking a bite.

"There's half a dozen civilians cornered in the park!" Iron Man's voice sounded in Darcy's ear. "Maybe two dozen drones around them. Too close to blow; the shrapnel would cut them to pieces."

"If that's the park about thirty meters southwest of your current position," Sitwell's fingers danced over the keys and a dozen dimmer lights blinked in surrounding a brilliant light on one of the big screens. "Then that's where the signals controlling the drones are coming from."

"They look like teenage girls!" Tony sounded incredulous.

"Are you saying girls can't be dangerous?" Natasha sounded dangerous. But then Natasha always sounded dangerous. Last Wednesday on her way into Agent Coulson's office, she'd said good morning to one of the junior agents and he'd burst into tears -- although, in fairness, he was on a rotation where he was getting barely four hours sleep a night. Personally, Darcy preferred people with guns to be well rested -- like surgeons and barristas and other people who held life and death in their hands -- but she had to assume SHIELD knew what it was doing. For now.

"I am hurt by your implication that I would ever be so incredibly stupid," Tony told her. "The most dangerous people I know are women. I'm going in."

"Hang on!" Working -- Avenging? -- Clint sounded a little like Steve -- well, like Captain America, Darcy amended -- all business, no snark. It was weird. "One of the drones just deactivated an arrow in flight. They've got directional EMP."

"Iron Man, hold your position." She could still hear Steve in Captain America but then the hero was right out there on the surface of the man so no surprise. If she'd met Captain America first, she'd have never fallen for the _just Steve_ ploy. "It could be a trap!"

Three of the screens went black.

"We've got the satellite feeds but that's it," Sitwell noted. "We're blind on the street."

"Television cameras." Darcy touched Agent Coulson on the shoulder. "The last two battles the Avengers fought in New York were televised live. Full coverage. Minimum six cameras, digital not analog. No way they're not out there now. Tap into their feed."

Coulson stared at her for a millisecond then nodded at the unnamed agent in the corner. "Do it."

"Yes, sir!" 

As the unnamed agent muttered unintelligible words that sounded to Darcy a lot like he was casting spells, Coulson took another bite of sandwich. 

"Got them!"

And after that, the fight went pretty much as expected. The drones were shot down. The gang of teenage girls were disarmed and arrested. Darcy watched the TV feed on her tablet and whoever was cutting the shots together made the whole thing look a lot more like heroics and a lot less like work. She made a mental note to suggest SHIELD hire them. Since they'd become a distinctly less than secret kickass government agency, the appalling state of their PR department had become a lot more obvious.

"Tony..." Steve sounded indignant. And a little weary. "...you have got to stop giving evil geniuses your card!"

"Hey, the path to righteousness is a good job in well funded R&D."

When Coulson held out his hand, Darcy pulled out her ear piece. 

"Good call on the television cameras. Now, given this was something the police could have handled..."

Darcy nodded. Shooters up high and a few canisters of gas in the park.

"...why were the Avengers called in?"

"Because there's strong odds that the less than highend criminal element uses this sort of thing as a distraction and if the police are all tied up here that makes it the perfect time to rob something somewhere else." She frowned. " And because as long as they're perceived as working for the man, they need to be seen working. Public opinion is a fickle bitch. Also, no one wants to deal with bored superheroes, they're like Jack Russels, high int, crazy amounts of energy -- if you don't give them enough to do, they'll eat the sofa."

The corner of Coulson's mouth twitched. "Sign her off on section twenty-six, one to seven."

"Done."

When Darcy glanced over at him, Agent Sitwell wore an approving smile. Seriously? For that? She was beginning to think SHIELD might rock the world at two plus two equaled OMG BOOM but had a little trouble when two plus two only came to four. 

"Why wasn't the Hulk here?"

"Not his type of fight. He doesn't smash with precision and it wasn't a big enough threat to justify collateral damage."

"Why were you here?"

"It wasn't a big enough threat you'd be likely to lose me my first time out. What?" she asked when Coulson and Sitwell exchanged an eyeroll and a snort respectively.

"Your understanding of your own mortality is refreshing," Coulson told her with a sigh. He levered himself up out of his chair. Darcy managed to stop herself from helping, but only just. "You'll be joining us for the debrief at the tower."

"Phil..."

He turned just far enough to fix Sitwell with an expression Darcy called bland exasperation. She'd been practising it in the mirror with limited success. "I'm going to the tower anyway and during the debrief, I'll be sitting in a chair. As it happens, Loki didn't stab me in the ass. Jarvis will be recording, I'll have him send you a copy."

"Phil..."

"Agent Lewis, please inform Agent Sitwell of what will happen should I keel over during a debriefing because I have over-extended."

"Agent Barton will up his mother-henning back to eleven, Agent Romanoff will have his ass in a sling and not in a fun way, Tony Stark will never let him forget it, and Captain America will look disappointed. I have no idea what Dr. Banner would do because I haven't met him but I suspect that since he does medical doctoring as well as the PhD kind, there'll be a long lecture on taking care during recovery from major wounds. What's more, should the Avengers not notice Agent Coulson is beginning to flag, I have direct orders from Director Fury to squeal on him. Too much?" she asked noticing Agent Coulson looked a little stunned.

"A bit."

"You had him at Cap looking disappointed," Sitwell snickered. " Agent Coulson, you have the debrief. I leave you in Probationary Agent Lewis' capable care."

Clint was on the ground when they got outside and if he hadn't checked his rush at the last minute, Darcy suspected he'd have bowled Coulson over.

"He's fine," she said, as Clint opened his mouth. The first time Coulson had been near the field since dying clearly had his superhero husband -- and seriously, superhero husband, how cool was that -- more than a little freaked out. "He was sitting in the van with me, eating a pastrami sandwich."

"You're fine?"

"I'm fine." Darcy's heart gave a little lurch at Coulson's expression. Disney couldn't have drawn a sappier silent _I love you_ on an animated rodent. "Although," he continued, "it's fascinating that you believe her where you wouldn't believe me." 

" You died."

"Fair enough."

" And you were..." Clint frowned, his hands dropping from Coulson's shoulders. "You had a pastrami sandwich? I'm out here saving the good citizens of New York not to mention Stark's metal ass, and _you_ get the pastrami sandwich?" 

"We didn't order takeout, Clint." The corner of Coulson's mouth twitched. "Darcy had it in her bag."

Clint whirled to face her and Darcy thought it might be smarter to delay the debriefing until the adrenaline rush wore off. Although this certainly explained the pencil holes in the ceiling of the conference rooms at headquarters. And the dents in the drywall. And the detailed, obscene drawing of Director Fury and Dr. Doom carved into the theoretically indestructible top of the conference room table. "You brought Phil a pastrami sandwich?"

"Better than that," Darcy said brightly. "I brought him a pastrami sandwich made by Captain America."

Agent Coulson made a small choking noise. Clint grinned. "Sucking up to the boss?"

Darcy gave him her sweetest smile. "Lulling him into a false sense of security."

Five minutes later, when Darcy found herself in the back of a black van with Clint and Coulson and the Black Widow, Clint was still snickering. Although not so much because of what she'd said as because of Coulson's dry, _"I don't think she's kidding."_

"So, tell me," Natasha instructed as they pulled into traffic. When Clint finished, she nodded, turned to Darcy and said, "We're keeping you."

It was the most terrifying endorsement Darcy'd ever received.


	6. Her Bangles, Her Spangles, and Her Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha handed Darcy a flute of champagne and sighed, "How many times do I have to say we're keeping her?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for taking so long to get back to Darcy. Life happened. As it does. I'd say this is one hell of a long chapter in order to make it up to you but, in all honesty, it's a long chapter just because it's a long chapter and we've finally covered four of the five things Darcy loves about working for SHIELD. Hope it was worth the wait.

"...and we're done. I want your mission reports on my desk first thing Monday morning. Questions?"

"How _do_ you get your whites so white?"

"Stark."

"Fine." Tony leapt to his feet. "If you're not going to tell me your secrets, Agent, then I'm out of here. Pizza in the common in thirty. I'm starving." He raised an arm over his head and vigorously sniffed an armpit. "Make it forty. I stink. In a hard working, saving New York, manly kind of way. Anybody care to come along and scrub my back?"

Although the waggling eyebrows were a bit much, his thousand watt grin very nearly pulled Darcy's hand into the air. She tightened her grip on her tablet. _Seriously, Lewis? Sure, he's obnoxiously adorable and sexy, but Steve's sitting right..._ Actually, Steve was standing.

Standing, and picking up his gloves, and saying, "Sure, I'll help. Once I peel the uniform off, I'm not going be very fresh myself."

Before Tony's jaw had finished dropping, Clint stood as well.

"Count me in. I don't know why I had to wear the sleeves..."

"Because it's nearly November," Coulson interrupted.

"Okay, fine, it's nearly November." Clint rolled his eyes and ran both hands back through his hair, the dried sweat making it stand up in spikes. "But unless _you_ want to help scrub my manly stink off..."

"I am, unfortunately, not yet cleared for communal showering."

"...then I'm getting wet with Steve and Tony."

"Oh no." Tony's hands were up. "...I'm not..."

"If you have no intention of showering with Clint and I..." Steve was suddenly using his command voice, and all the hairs lifted off the back of Darcy's neck. "...then you had to have been making a sexually inappropriate remark to either my girl or the Black Widow. Now, since I know you're too smart to make that sort of remark to a dame... sorry, woman who can kill you a hundred different ways..."

"More," Natasha added blandly. 

"...rough estimate," Steve continued, "you must've been making it to Darcy."

"That's not exactly..." Tony began, but Steve cut him off.

"And that makes it look very much as though you don't respect her as a person and an agent."

"Hey, I have made sexually inappropriate remarks to both people and agents that I respect!" From where she was sitting, Darcy couldn't see Steve's expression, but Tony could and he sighed. "Yeah, you're right. Agent Lewis, my apologies. This is only our second meeting and..." He frowned. "You didn't tell Captain Tightpants here about our first meeting did you?"

Darcy grinned as she raised a hand and stopped whatever Steve had been about to ask. "It's cool, Kaylee, I edited."

"Bless you, my child. Eventually, if you continue working with Agent and banging boots with Steve..."

"Tony."

Tony ignored Steve's growl. "I hope we reach that level of friendship where you can concentrate on the genius and ignore the rest of what comes out of my mouth." The grin sharpened. "Staying for pizza?"

She glanced over at Steve who gave her the universal eyebrow raise of _I'm good with whatever you decide_. "I am."

"Excellent." Halfway to the door, he paused and turned. "Just out of curiosity, Agent Lewis, _did_ you want to scrub my back?"

Darcy met his gaze and threw out an edged grin of her own. "I hadn't got around to considering it. I was too busy realizing you were old enough to be my father."

"Ow." Both hands clasped over his heart... his arc reactor, he bowed. "Your point, agent." Then he winked and was gone.

"We are definitely keeping her," Nastasa muttered before glancing up at the two men standing. "What would you have done if he'd been in the mood to take you up on it?"

Clint shrugged. "You've seen the showers on the helicarrier. It's not like I haven't showered dick to dick with half a dozen guys before."

"I just got out of the army," Steve added. He turned to Darcy, still showing a little more Captain America than Steve. "Please don't think that I thought you needed to be defended. It's just that Tony needs things to be personal before he..."

"Realizes he has to engage his brain before he opens his mouth even if there isn't a microphone present. That he's part of a group now and his behaviour reflects onto the group. That in spite of the mess outside, the government's been pretty hands off the Avengers so far, but if he pisses off the wrong person that might not last. That some of the people he might piss off are women so he has got to modify his behaviour. At least a little. I get it." She looked around the table. "Arrogance stops being attractive when it slides over the line from how great I am to how great you aren't." She spread her hands. "Sure, he got handed a crappy deal, but, bottom line, he was badly socialized as a puppy."

"I changed my mind." Natasha stood as well. "We're not keeping her. We're cloning her."

Darcy turned to stare at Coulson. "Can we do that, Boss?"

The corner of Coulson's mouth twitched. "That, Agent, is above your clearance level."

***

Darcy stood just inside the door of Steve's apartment in the tower and stared at the molding, and the muted pattern of the wall paper, and the brass light fixtures. The furniture looked solid and slightly worn. Comfortable. Homey. The last time she'd seen decorating that resembled it had been on a 2AM re-watch of Costner's _Untouchables_. Actually, she was pretty sure that she'd seen that exact decorating on the Untouchables.. "It's... uh..."

"Tony did it." Steve tossed his cowl on one of the overstuffed chairs. "Well, Tony had it done. I think he wanted me to feel less out of my time." He looked around like it was the first time he was seeing it. "I got rid of the doilies, but other than that, it's all Tony."

"Doilies?"

"On everything. It looked like he'd bought out a church bazaar. But there's an enormous television that comes down from the ceiling and all the lights and curtains are voice activated." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm a little afraid to use half of what's in the kitchen and the shower in the bathroom off the main bedroom looks like something from Amazing Stories."

"The main bedroom?"

"There's two." He looked a bit embarrassed. "And a studio."

"Okay." Darcy sighed. "I know you told me that you're living in Brooklyn because you wanted your life back and given that I benefited from your decision, I'm a little conflicted, but how the hell can you weigh that tiny, beige, SHIELD supplied apartment against all this and have this lose?"

He squared his shoulders. Which made, Darcy acknowledged, an impressive statement. "I had to live in the world, Darcy. Living here would've been hiding from it. Not only hiding in the tower but hiding in my past."

"Your past had doilies?"

"And more." Dimples flashed. "Back in the war, Mrs. Keith Peterson from Wisconsin sent me a crocheted shield cover."

About to marvel that he remembered Mrs. Keith Peterson's name, Darcy realized that for Steve _back in the war_ was barely seven months ago. "That explains your non reaction to the afghan," she said instead.

Steve looked down at the sofa, as though expecting to see the afghan there, then back up at Darcy. "Once you've put a crocheted cover on your weapon..."

"On your weapon?" Darcy moved in a little closer. "Steve Rogers, did you just make a smutty innuendo?"

"How was that smutty?"

He looked so honestly confused that she'd started to apologize when she noticed the corner of his mouth twitch. It had been more the hint of a movement than an actual twitch, but needing to learn Agent Coulson's tells had sharpened her powers of observation. 

"Nice bluff, babe!" She gave him two thumbs up and a broad grin and when he began to smile back at her, his defenses lowered, she threw herself at him. If he was in the mood for smutty innuendo, she intended to extend the moment. Tickling being the physical manifestation of smutty innuendo, she dug her fingers into his most sensitive spots. His most sensitive pg13 spots anyway.

"Tony made this latest version of my uniform all but bullet proof, Darcy, I don't think you can... Okay..." His voice rose to a near squeak, "...maybe you can!" Fingers wrapped around her wrists, he pulled her hands off him and tucked them into the small of her back. 

Fully aware he'd release her instantly if she struggled, Darcy relaxed into his hold, plastering herself against him as she purred, "Now you have me, what are you going to do with me?"

When he bent and kissed her, she made a happy sound. Followed by a disappointed sound when he released her and stepped away.

"I really need to shower. You don't know what a privilege it is to get clean after a fight." He grabbed a handful of uniform and pulled it away from his body. "We used to spend weeks stewing in our own filth and I hated it."

Not only was that his sincere voice, but he was actually sharing a piece of his past so Darcy sighed and let it go. Mostly let it go...

"You could ask me to wash your back," she said hopefully.

"No." He shook his head and stared down at the toes of his boots. "Tony's made that... dirty."

"Please," she snorted, "if you hadn't just caught me with your crocheted codpiece, I might've fallen for that. Go." She waved a hand as he grinned at her. "Shower." She didn't want to rub herself all over his sweaty body anyway. Much. Oh dear lord, now she couldn't think of anything but rubbing herself all over his sweaty body. "I'll check to see if Tony's booby-trapped the kitchen."

Tony hadn't. Or at least there were no booby-traps that Darcy could find using the skills from her first and most basic of SHIELD's _surprise, you're dead_ classes. More importantly, none of the small appliances seemed to have personalities. Although if the fridge and the stove ever got it together, they had enough computing power between them to run NASA.

Back in the living room, she wandered over to the bookshelves. Most of the books had clearly been chosen to help Steve adjust, ranging from simple histories of the last 100 years to collections of complex social and cultural analysis.

"And the bound volumes of Playboy are here for the articles." She flipped through 1976-80 then slid it back onto the shelf. "I guess he had to learn about airbrushing some time."

A shelf empty of books held only a single photo in a polished wooden frame. The photo was of a skinny young man in uniform whose head looked too big for his body. His hands were half curled into fists and his chin was up as though he'd challenged the photographer to do his worst. His cheeks were concave, his nose on the beaky side, and his eyes familiar...

"They took that right before I stripped down to get into Dr. Erskine's machine." Steve sounded so completely neutral that Darcy didn't turn to face him, but continued studying the photo. "There were a bunch of other pictures around, the Commandos, some framed newspaper clippings from the war – I shoved them all out of sight, but that one, I kept. It reminds me that without the gift of this body, I'd have been..."

"You'd have been fighting."

"What?"

Darcy touched the glass over his heart with her fingertips. "You let Dr. Erskine and Howard Stark take their machine for a test drive on your body because you were willing to do whatever it took to beat the bad guys. Not to get a smokin' bod that'll bag the chicks, but to finally be able to get fighting flesh to match a fighting spirit. That's pretty definitive evidence that you..." She turned then, to find him watching her with wide eyes. "...incidental to all the added muscle, are the bravest man I have ever had the honour to meet. And also the stupidest," she added before he could speak. "Seriously, that machine was completely ludicrous, and it should never have worked in a million years."

To her surprise, Steve laughed. Not like he thought she was funny but like crying was his only other option.

"Peggy said..." He shook his head and tried again. "Peggy said the exact same thing."

"She sounds like a very smart woman."

"She was. She was smart and strong and brave and gorgeous and funny and sarcastic and..." His exhale was a little shaky. Darcy wanted to go to him, but she stood her ground. With luck, this was where Peggy let him come to her. "And she would've liked you. You do what you have to to get things done. She used to say that. You do what you have to to get things done. Not you." He gestured, a small, careful movement as though afraid that a larger movement might release more than a spill of words. "But you... people. She managed to find the most independent career path the army offered and made it hers. She saw..." This exhale was steadier. "She saw Captain America in..." He nodded toward the photo. "...in that, and she saw Steve when everyone saw Captain America." He held out his hand and Darcy, her heart pounding like a Stomp encore, put hers in it. His fingers were warm, and when he pulled her close, she went willingly. 

He smelled like soap and shampoo and fabric softener. Darcy rested her cheek against his white t-shirt and made no protest as he held on just a little too tight.

"Director Fury let me read her file. Peggy was one of the people who got SHIELD up and running. It wasn't called SHIELD then, you probably know that though." His words were warm on the top of Darcy's head. "She never married, but it looks like she had a full a full life anyway. Not that I think a dame... woman needs to get married to have a full life just... "

Darcy felt him swallow. His whole body shook with it.

"We were never had much time together. We had moments, hours. I added it up and in the time you and I have known each other, we've had nearly as much actual face to face as me and Peggy." Steve's arms tightened little more. Darcy muffled a squeak in his chest, not wanting to stop the flow of words. "She was a dream of the future, for after the war. But the war never really ends for people like me, does it? The fight goes on and you're the reality. But it's a good reality," he added hurriedly. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded. This future with you in it is real, not a dream like a future with Peggy was a dream. This isn't something I wanted, it's something I have. Son of a... I don't mean I don't want you because I do, I really do. Darcy?" She felt his muscles tense. And that was _a lot_ of tensing. "Say something?"

"Can't." A shallow breath. "Squashed."

Steve released her so suddenly, she swayed and would have fallen had he not clutched at her shoulders with exaggerated gentleness.

"Darcy! Are you hurt? Did I hurt you? This is why I can't..."

She put her finger on his mouth, pressing hard enough his lips dimpled. She didn't want to hear why he couldn't. "I'm fine. I'm very squashable. And Peggy Carter sounds like a boffo dame." When she felt his lips curl into a smile, she frowned. "Not from the forties? I was using it wrong?"

He kissed her fingertip before she could draw it away. "You used it perfectly. She's buried out in Long Island. Would you... someday, would you..."

"Like to go there with you? Of course." Jarvis had assured her on the way up in the elevator that he didn't record in the apartments unless asked. Pity she hadn't thought to ask because she wanted to keep the expression on Steve's face and take it out whenever she needed the suckage of the world eased by something sweet and amazing and a little bit heartbreaking. "You thought I'd want you to forget her?"

"I thought most girls..."

A raised hand cut him off. "Okay, I'm not most girls and I'd never, ever ask you to give up anything that makes you who you are. In case you haven't caught on, I like who you are." She lowered her hand to let it rest on his chest, over his heart. "I like it a lot. I want it not to hurt you so much when you think of her, but only time will fix that. I want you, Steve Rogers. I want the nerdy technophobic artist as much as the kick-ass Captain America. I want the guy who carries the cans and makes me pastrami sandwiches as much as the guy who stands for Truth and Justice and the America Dream."

"Way. Truth, Justice and the American Way."

She pulled her hand back far enough to flick the curve of a pec. "No, that's Superman. He's a comic book character. You're real so you have to be more flexible. Flexible enough to learn to live in a whole new world. I want that guy. And I want the guy who hates bullies and loves to run because he fought for breath for so long."

"You wouldn't have looked at me twice before the serum." He sounded... resigned.

So Darcy took another look at the photo and said, "Nope. Probably not."

His eyes widened. "Most girls..."

"Would've lied? Once again, not most girls. But I like to think had circumstances forced us into close contact, like you and Peggy, that, like Peggy, I'd have seen the hero that lead to..."

 _...this,_ she continued silently as Steve's mouth closed over hers. _Also, toothpaste!_ He'd brushed his teeth when he showered. Darcy had no idea why she thought that was hot but she did.

Her arms went around his neck and when she went up on her toes, he cupped his hands under her ass and lifted. Her legs around his waist, he backed to the sofa, and this time she knew he wasn't going to stop. He dropped burning kisses down the curve of her throat, and fingers up under her sweater stroked bare skin above the waistband of her jeans.

"Agent Lewis. Captain Rogers. Dr. Foster requires your presence on the roof immediately."

Darcy let her head fall against Steve's shoulder. "That's it. I'm switching out her coffee for decafe."

"Did she say why Jarvis?"

''Yes, sir. Dr. Foster would like the Avengers present when she re-opens the Einstein-Rosen bridge."

***

The roof was very high off the ground. Which was a fairly basic observation but given the way the wind was blowing and how far away the ground was, Darcy felt completely justified in making it. And even more justified in clutching Steve's hand.

Jane was over by the arc reactor Loki'd forced Dr. Selwig to hook up to the tesseract – restored to powering the tower, it looked a lot smaller than it did in its official SHIELD photos. Although the wind whipped her words away, the amount of arm waving suggested she was arguing with the compactly built man facing her. He kept opening his mouth and not being able to get a word in edgewise – Darcy knew how that felt – and was left tugging at his greying curls as if he was some kind of modern Samson and got strength from his hair. He looked vaguely famil...

"That's Dr. Banner. Bruce Banner." Her grip on Steve's hand tightened. "The Hulk!'

"He's perfectly safe..." Steve's voice trailed off and when Darcy looked up at him, he wore one of his more earnest expressions; the one he used when he felt guilty. Since Steve still felt guilty about surviving when everyone he knew had died – as well eating the last egg roll and leaving the toilet seat up – it was a expression Darcy was familiar with. "Okay, not perfectly safe, but he has the change under a lot more control than he thinks he does."

If she had to guess, Darcy figured Steve felt guilty about Dr. Banner's situation because the doctor had been involved in research intended to duplicate the super-soldier serum. Darcy didn't see much point in feeling guilty over things she hadn't been personally responsible for, but Steve was a better man than she was – for more than the obvious she wasn't actually a man reason. "Yay for having the change more under control, because you know, out of of control big green rage monsters while stupidly high above the pavement so not a good thing, but I'm not afraid of him. It's just he's my last Avenger. Once I meet him, I have the set."

"I could introduce you but..."

"It's okay. He's doing science. Trust me, after Jane, I'm aware of the whole science eats the social centers of the brain thing."

"And right on cue," Steve muttered as the elevator door opened and Tony charged out followed by a slender redhead Darcy recognized as Pepper Potts.

There'd been a file on Ms. Potts attached to the much more extensive file on Tony, written in such a way that it was clear that the writers – and there were at least two – thought she was the greatest thing since premium cable channels. The content supported their opinion and the simple fact that Tony Stark trusted her, given his background, spoke volumes. Darcy kind of loved the fact that although Ms. Potts was clearly taller than Tony, she still had on a killer pair of heels.

Breaking into a run, Tony headed for the reactor, shouting, "You promised not to start without me!" 

When he made grabby hands at a coil of conduit and both Jane and Dr. Banner turned to face him wearing weirdly identical expressions of pique – weird because of their vastly different physiognomies – Steve sighed and said, "I'd better go see if I can help control him before we end up with a bridge to Wonderland and a Jabberwocky instead of Thor."

"That would definitely put a crimp in Jane's plans for the rest of the afternoon," Darcy agreed, reluctantly releasing Steve's hand. If she stayed away from the edge, she should be fine. She shuffled a couple of careful steps closer to the center of the roof.

"Tony seems to think I should find _don't worry babe, I'd catch you before you hit the ground_ reassuring but, if you don't mind, I'll stand here with you."

Darcy turned to see Pepper Potts standing beside her, looking elegant in spite of the wind. Since whether or not she minded the CEO of Stark Industries' company was clearly rhetorical, Darcy smiled and said nothing.

"Those are kickass Louboutin's."

Almost nothing.

"Thanks. They're this month's _board meeting, what board meeting_ shoes."

"Sweet."

"Particularly since board meetings go much more smoothly when he's not there." 

"Lips are sealed." Darcy held out her hand. "I'm..."

"Probationary Agent Darcy Lewis."

"Darcy, please, Ms. Potts. It helps maintain the illusion I'm not always at work."

The grin knocked a decade off Pepper's age. "Then it's Pepper. For the same reason."

Shaking hands with Pepper was like shaking hands with competence. Like shaking hands with Phil Coulson minus the gun callouses plus a hundred dollar manicure.

"I've been hoping to meet you," Pepper continued. Darcy expected her next words to be _Steve talks about you all the time. _They weren't. "Because I've been wanting to thank you."__

"Thank me?"

"Steve and Tony weren't really getting along..."

They turned together to watch Tony explain something that required vigorous arm movements to Steve while Jane and Dr. Banner actually got on with things.

"...and while it wasn't as bad as it was in the beginning, Tony rubbed Steve the wrong way and Steve wasn't exactly subtle about what he thought. You changed the way he thought about Tony and that changed how they interacted and now, I think they're actually becoming friends. Tony doesn't make friends easily. So, thank you. Most people don't bother to look past the lights and music."

Darcy pulled a strand of wind blown hair out of her mouth. "Most people are idiots."

"Not arguing." After a moment she added, "Is there really a P-277?"

"How did you hear about..."

"I told her."

Darcy jumped as Natasha's voice came from behind them. She turned to see Agent Coulson and Clint over by the elevator. Tie missing but still in his suit, Coulson looked tired. Jane's summons added to the morning's attack was more continuous action than he'd seen since he'd come back to work and only Clint's arm around his waist and general air of over-protectiveness kept Darcy using her Fury-given right to intervene. When the two men stayed by the elevator, she figured their history with Loki explained why they were keeping their distance. Jane's genius aside, there was really no telling what a connection to Asgard might kick out. Which also explained Clint's bow, fully loaded field quiver, the P90 leaning against the wall by Coulson's right leg, and six other weapons she couldn't see. Six because according to the SHIELD training manual, she should expect three hidden weapons for every one visible. Unless she was looking at the Black Widow then actually counting weapons became a little pointless.

"It was a story worth telling," Natasha continued. "You tazed a fellow agent in a coffee shop."

"I don't like people talking smack about my friends."

The three women exchanged a glance of perfect agreement.

"So, is there really a P-277," Pepper prodded.

"The form for being a dumbass in public?" Darcy smiled. "There is now."

Over by the arc reactor, Tony was typing into the keyboard but since no one was trying to stop him, Darcy figured it actually had to do with science not his ego. When he stepped away, carefully avoiding the pattern drawn on the roof, Jane spread her arms and yelled, "Heimdall! When you're ready!"

"Heimdall?" Pepper murmured.

"I think," Darcy said as a brilliant white light stabbed down from the sky to meet the brilliant white light stabbing up from the reactor, "science just joined forces with faith."

And then there was Thor.

Darcy'd wondered on and off over the last couple of years – usually when she was on the phone with Jane and her part of the conversation had devolved to silent support – if Thor could possibly be as Thor-like as she remembered. Could he really be as tall, as blond, as built? Oh sure, she'd watched every moment of footage available on the battle of New York but everyone knew television added 10 pounds of glam. Surely memory had to have exaggerated his attributes.

Nope. Not even a little.

Not even her recent close and personal contact with Captain America – who was pretty damned godlike on his own – made Thor any less magnificent. 

He landed on one knee in the center of the pattern, mjolnir on the roof in front of him, one massive fist wrapped around around the hammer's handle, his cloak billowing like a multi-million dollar special effect. Pulling off his helmet as he stood, he pivoted on one armored boot-heel, scooped Jane up in his arms, and applied his mouth to hers.

"As much as I'm usually in favor of some small amount of conversation before the face sucking," Darcy murmured, "if he'd hesitated, I'd have hurt him."

Natasha growled a wordless agreement.

"She's actually still pretty torqued he didn't call her when he was here during the whole Loki thing," Darcy added after a minute or two.

"As well she should be," Pepper said.

"That's either some vigorously applied Asgardian tongue or Jane's got gerbils fighting in her cheeks." 

Before either of her companions could respond, Dracy noticed that against all odds Jane had managed to separate her lips far enough from Thor's for speech, "I need to take some readings on the bridge."

"Your wisdom shines as bright as your beauty," Thor declared.

"You have to put me down."

"Can you not perform this science from my arms?"

"You're a little distracting."

"I'm very distracting."

"If you put me down now, you can be very distracting in fifteen minutes."

"If she actually lays off the science in only fifteen minutes," Darcy said as Thor reluctantly set Jane back on her feet, "I will no longer doubt his divinity."

Natasha muttered something in Russian and Pepper added, "I look at that ass and I don't doubt his divinity." 

Before Darcy could argue that Steve's ass was equally as divine, she found herself caught up in an enthusiastic hug and nearly deafened by a booming, "Lady Darcy!"

It was the second time in an hour she'd been squashed by a hot blond. Her life definitely didn't suck. Except "hot" might not have been the best description. "Holy crap, your armor is cold!"

"It's the cold of space between the worlds," Thor explained as he released her. 

"Yeah? Well, I think I just lost a nipple to frostbite."

"My Lady Jane..."

"Oh please." Darcy grabbed a handful of cloak to keep him from charging back to Jane's side. "She's so hot for you, you could have come directly from Niflheim and she wouldn't have noticed the chill. I'm glad you're back, big guy, she really missed you." When the corners of his mouth turned down, she sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine. I missed you too."

That got her a blinding smile and another hug. Finally released, Darcy attempted to surreptitiously rearrange her boobs as Natasha and Pepper were greeted significantly less physically. Natasha got the forearm to forearm warrior shake and Pepper received a deep and graceful bow.

Rising from the bow, Thor spotted Agent Coulson and Clint and charged across the roof toward them. "Son of Coul! How pleased I am to see the word of your death was exaggerated!"

"Niflheim?" Pepper asked.

"World of primordial ice and cold," Darcy explained. "I did some reading after Thor left the first time." No need to add _I'm smarter than I look_. If anyone understood that, it was Pepper high elf gorgeous CEO of Stark Industries Potts and Natasha walking wet dream Romanova. "Thor! Put him down!" Agent Coulson was all but invisible behind cloak and armor and arms and Clint had begun to get twitchy. "Don't make me taze you again!"

"My apologies, Son of Coul! My joy at seeing you overcame me. You're still recovering and Lady Darcy should not have had to threaten to maintain your safety."

"You're fortunate she threatened you." Agent Coulson twitched his jacket back into place like he was vigorously hugged by a god every day. In fairness, Darcy allowed that Clint's ass was pretty divine too. "She usually skips that step."

"As I well know."

Clint got the arm to arm warrior shake and a few quite words Darcy couldn't overhear. Given Clint's expression, she really hoped it wasn't something like _we're torturing my brother in your name_ because that would be too creepy. 

"Lady Darcy!" Thor had turned from Clint. "Lest I forget, Lady Sif sends greetings. She says women who take up arms should stand together."

Darcy could feel Pepper and Natasha standing beside her and she raised a fist. "Word, sister."

Confused but willing, Thor raised a fist in answer and hurried across the roof to greet Steve and Tony and Dr. Banner. Which, Darcy noted, put him conveniently close to Jane.

"I'm going to need to debrief him," Agent Coulson said as he and Clint joined Darcy's group in the center of the roof. 

Darcy snickered as, right at the fifteen minute mark, Jane handed the keyboard back to Dr. Banner and climbed Thor like a big armored tree. "Sorry, Boss, I think Jane's got dibs on that."

***

Darcy slapped at her alarm clock and dragged the covers back up over her head. What idiot thought five thirty should happen twice a day? When the noise didn't stop, she slapped the clock again. And again. 

Right. 

Her phone.

"Wha...?"

"I'll be up to get you in five minutes."

"You are way too perky for stupid o'clock in the morning."

"Five minutes," Steve repeated and hung up.

Darcy stared at her phone for a moment, wondered when Tony had changed her background to a shot of Iron Man holding a puppy, and, reluctantly, got out of bed. In order to raise her clearance level she had to tick off a couple more boxes on the physical preparedness list – relevant to being vertical before sunrise: running one and one half miles in less than thirteen minutes without actually dying after. Although _without actually dying after_ had been more implied than explicit. 

Until she raised her clearance level, she'd be locked out of briefings, debriefings, rebriefings that involved Asgard in spite of having been one of the first people to ever interact with Thor.

Coulson had spread his hands. _"I don't make the rules, Agent Lewis."_

_"Okay, first, total lie."_

_"I don't make all the rules," he amended. "I didn't make this one."_

_"Fine. Whatever. But I bet I've heard stories about Asgard you'll never hear."_

_He glanced at the massive hickey on Thor's neck and sighed. "No bet."_

The more relevant point was that Steve had been locked in those briefings all weekend and while taking notes wouldn't have been her preferred way of spending time with her boyfriend, it beat standing in the hall, staring at a closed door and realizing Jane and Thor had been smart to skip Tony's frikkin' pizza party in order to get a little couple time in.

She was leaning on her apartment door, retying her shoes for the fourth time, when Steve bounded up the stairs and handed her a banana. 

"High in potassium," he said in answer to her silent question. "Rebuilds muscle tissue and won't upset your stomach."

"Joy." She tied back her hair, took the banana – Steve had clearly expanded his internet searches beyond _what the heck is up with people wearing knit hats inside_ – and glared past Steve at Alan who'd apparently followed Steve up the stairs. "You're just coming home, aren't you?"

He grinned, glitter glinting on his cheeks. "While I appreciate the view," he said, taking a long look at the way Steve's shoulders strained the seams of his t-shirt, "it's too cold out there. You should put a hoodie or something on."

"I'll be fine, thanks. I tend to run hot."

"Don't say it." Darcy raised the half peeled banana in a threatening gesture. Alan's eyebrows rose with it.

"Displacement?" he asked, his grin turning to a wince as Darcy bit the end off with more force than was strictly necessary.

"Now it is."

The run didn't kill her although, a couple of times, she wished it would.

"Two weeks," Steve told her, kissing her goodbye at her door. "You're in good shape, it's just a matter of training new muscle responses."

"Yeah, yeah, I have a good shape. It's just not designed for this." What about slinking? She could kick ass and take names at slinking – except she suspected she didn't have clearance for slinking. She briefly considered asking Steve in to scrub her back except she didn't have time and, more importantly, she'd never felt less sexy. Her boobs hurt. Her thighs felt chaffed. And she was pretty sure that even her shins were sweating. Shins weren't supposed to sweat. Not in October anyway.

Half an hour at the range imagining the targets were the smug, self-satisfied runners who'd passed them in the park helped. 

The new clearance level needed sixty hours range time.

It also needed her to be signed off on basic hand to hand.

"You don't usually teach the basic hand to hand," Darcy pointed out as Natasha stepped onto the mats.

"I don't. But keeping you out of those briefings while Agent Coulson needs your assistance is asinine."

"He overdid it?"

"Of course he did."

"Clint...?"

"Is not Coulson's mother. And then there was stupid male posturing. And then later a large fight and Clint spent part of the night at my place. Don't worry." She raised a hand. "They made up."

Darcy could hear the sound of heads being banged together in her tone.

"If I teach you," Natasha continued, "it takes half the time and you finish actually knowing how to disable an opponent both larger and stronger than yourself in the most efficient manner. Assistant Director Hill pointed out we already have a certain similarity of style."

"Please." Darcy rolled her eyes. "Like she's never kicked someone in the nuts." 

"Also, if I'm here, I won't be expected to answer stupid questions on morning television. 

"Win, win." Darcy braced herself. "Okay let's... Ow."

Monday night she got home at nine and fell asleep with her head on Steve's lap. She had no memory of being carried up to bed but she woke to her own alarm at five thirty.

Tuesday afternoon Steve got called to Washington to speak to a Senate committee on funds for the rebuilding of New York City. When he wasn't back by Wednesday, Darcy gritted her teeth and ran on her own. On Thursday, with Steve still in Washington, she said fuck it and slept in until six. She had bruises on her forearms from learning to block and her nipples felt like they'd been up close and personal with a cheese grater. 

Later that morning in the gym, Natasha handed her a small package. "Tony sent this for you."

It was a sports bra. T-back with a front closure, the interior of the sturdy cups were so soft to the touch that Darcy may have whimpered at little.

"He says to remind you that he's an engineer and he understands structural support."

"Seriously?"

Natasha shrugged. "He's spent a lot of time thinking about breasts. Now, he's giving back. And at least it's not red and gold."

Friday morning's run didn't hurt. Explaining to Steve how Tony had saved her boobs was distracting enough she almost forgot how much she hated being awake before sunrise. Then it started to rain and even if Tony'd been holding her boobs up by hand, it wouldn't have been distraction enough.

Friday afternoon she explained to the junior agents in the fake cubicle farm that when Juan announced the bean hopper was empty, he wasn't making coffee machine conversation; he needed someone to REFILL THE GODDAMNED FUCKING BEAN HOPPER! By five, her desk held three apology cupcakes, a half empty jar of cinnamon hearts, and a box of junior mints.

Friday evening – provided the definition of evening extended past nine – she managed a quick make-out session with Steve – above clothes and around bruises – before he headed for a red eye flight to Brussels with Thor to put an American face on Asgardian diplomacy. Asgard had offered help with the rebuilding, but it seemed negotiating with aliens once worshiped as gods was above Major Bloomberg's pay grade. Jane would be accompanying them to discuss the recreation of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge...

"And to indulge in some Asgardian diplomacy of her own," Steve added.

Darcy snorted. "Is that what the kids are calling it now."

...and they'd be escorted by AD Hill and several nameless agents.

"Unless something happens," Steve sighed into the top of her head, "I'll be gone for a week."

" _Something_ like Thor challenging head of the EU to single combat?" Darcy asked, rubbing his left nipple and grinning as it tried it to use its enhanced super-soldier abilities to poke through the fabric.

"I was thinking more like an attack that needed... Darcy! ...the Avengers, but given Thor... Damn it! ...I'm not ruling out... Mmmmrph!"

If he was going to be gone for a week there needed to be a lot less talking she decided, tongue in his mouth.

She played catch-up with paperwork all weekend but didn't seem to catch-up. 

"It definitely says something," she told Steve, cell phone on speaker Monday evening, as she carried Sam back up to the fourth floor curled up purring happily in her plastic basket of clean laundry, "that the weekend highlight was two hours at the range with Clint correcting my stance and wondering how I hit the far wall let alone the target."

"Clouson..."

"Is apparently an adult and able to be left on his own."

"Natasha agreed to stay with him?"

"Uh huh. Did you know Clint can swear in eight languages? SHIELD should've sent him to Europe then you could've stayed home and corrected my stance."

"You don't mean at the range, do you?"

"Nope." She handed Sam back to Sylvia and headed down the hall to her own apartment. "So, what are you wearing?"

"My uniform."

"Army or stars and stretch?"

"Army. Why?"

"Seriously?"

"Darcy, I'm waiting outside a restaurant, I'm not going to participate in a... Oh no."

Darcy could hear a muted roar in the background. "Single combat?"

"Looks like. Miss you, gotta run."

"Bye, ba..." She ended the call, sagged against her door, and stared across the hall at Alan who stood watching her with his arms folded, hands hidden in the wide sleeves of a silk kimono. "He misses me."

"Margarita?" 

"God, yes."

***

Tuesday afternoon, one of the junior agents from the cubicle farm delivered a six pack of Ensure to Darcy's desk. 

She looked up from sorting Avengers fanmail into creepy, really creepy, and no one not even Natasha is that flexible folders, and frowned at the plastic bottles. "Meal supplements?" 

The agent – whose name was Melissa, or Melanie, or maybe MaryAnne; trouble in Venezuela had them rotating out so quickly over the last four or five days that Darcy hadn't caught up – nodded. "Meal supplements," she repeated. "You've been accelerated out of your group, so you're going to miss most of the locker room talk."

"About...?"

"How to survive being a probationary agent." Melissa, Melanie, or maybe MaryAnne leaned forward and lowered her voice. "One in three agents are women but there's still men in SHIELD who think we don't have a right to be here because we don't pee standing up. But you know what we do have?"

"Each other's backs?"

"And these cool plastic things that let us pee standing up. They're part of the field gear. Stick to the vanilla." She straightened. "The chocolate's a total lie and the strawberry tastes like cough syrup and milk." 

"Uh... Thanks?"

Melissa, Melanie, or maybe MaryAnne waved it off as she went to her desk.

"Well, I guess missing meals explains why all my underwear is suddenly too big," Darcy murmured, cracking one of the bottles out of packaging.

A moment later her phone buzzed.

::you thot there wz a different reason?::

And a moment later.

::Cap borrowing yr undies?::

And a moment after that.

::HULK borrowing yr undies?::

Darcy snickered and sent a heads up email to a third of the desks in the cubicle farm informing them Agent Barton was back in the ductwork and reminding them he could lipread.

::Brat.::

Apparently, he had a line of sight on her monitor as well.

***

As Agent Coulson was scheduled to spend Wednesday in medical, Darcy figured she'd finally have a chance at catching up. Without Agent Coulson to check over any new reports that came in, she'd be able to get the old ones filed. 

Hair still damp and nose still bleeding slightly from a more or less accidental impact with the Black Widow's elbow, she was at her desk by eleven. By twelve forty-five, she'd reassured Thor that anyone who insulted someone six and a half feet tall, wearing armor, and carrying an enormous hammer was too stupid to live and should be thankful he'd been offered the option of single combat but perhaps, in the future, Thor should just consider idiots of that caliber beneath him. Then she'd used small words to go over the concept of diplomatic immunity with an overly enthusiastic member of the Hague's law enforcement who probably been chosen to make a call his superiors knew would go nowhere because he was young and overly enthusiastic. Darcy was young but she was cynical so it evened out. Then she reassured Jane that even though the sight of Thor going all _I will smite thee!_ on a French jackass in a tuxedo got her damp in the panties it no more made her a bad feminist than it made Thor a male chauvinist pig and she reminded her that one of his best friends was a kickass woman with a sword. 

Then she paraphrased all three conversations for the press release because SHIELD PR would be certain to screw it up. Hard to believe that an organization dealing in international espionage and the occasional assassination had never heard the marketing 101 axiom: If it's something that _can_ be laughed off, make sure they laugh it off. 

She was just getting off the phone after being cathartically rude to one of the producers of the Letterman show – Letterman? Seriously? So last decade. – when Natasha showed up at her desk. 

"How's the nose?"

"Fine. The dried blood acts like a plug to keep me from bleeding out and I sound a little like Marlon Brando."

"Good. Pepper's waiting outside; we're going to lunch."

"Okay...?"

"We're," Natasha repeated, waving a hand between her and Darcy. "As in you, me, and Pepper."

"But..."

"I cleared it with Coulson." She flipped up one finger. "We have you back by two." A second finger. "No vodka."

Darcy waited but it seemed that was it. "Don't these things usually travel in threes?" she asked locking her desk.

"He wanted you to leave your taser, but since you can't carry your SHIELD issued weapon out of the building and your nose to elbow defense needs work..." Her lips curled into what was definitely a smirk. "...I assumed boredom with medical testing had rendered him delirious and decided to ignore him. And no," she added turning to stare up at the ceiling, "you can't come along to a girly lunch as our gay best friend because you're not gay."

Which Darcy had assumed, given his reaction to her boobs. However... "Clint and the boss?"

"Coulson's gay. Clint's enthusiastically non-discriminating." Her phone buzzed. "My mistake," she continued without checking it. "Clint _used_ to be enthusiastically non-discriminating. Now, he's a happily, monogamously married bisexual." Her phone buzzed again. Natasha rolled her eyes and added, "But not blind."

There were rumors among the probationary agents that Agent Romanova was selectively telepathic. Darcy'd figured that if your life depended on your powers of observation, those powers got honed. Also, all reports said Natasha and Clint had a connection right from the start and, what's more, they'd been partners for a long time. Plus, Darcy'd read the non-redacted parts of a file concerning an op in Canada where the two of them had been trapped in a duck blind for nine days while Hydra built a secret base practically on top of them. She figured that for two people to survive nine days in a duck blind without killing each other – when killing was part of their job descriptions, not to mention the purpose of a duck blind – they had to have learned to think in sync.

Weirdly, it hadn't been SHIELD who'd rescued them but Ducks Unlimited. Turned out Hydra had been building on a protected wetland. 

***

"This Saturday?" Taco halfway to her mouth, Darcy stared first at Pepper then at Natasha. "And I'm expected to attend?"

"You're invited," Pepper corrected smoothly. "The Avengers are expected to attend since they're the reason we're charging such stupidly high prices for the tickets and half of Hollywood is willing to fly across the country for the fundraiser. Every one wants to be seen with the in crowd and right now, the Avengers are very in. Steve was supposed to invite you."

Darcy sighed. "Steve may be Captain America but he's still a guy. I bet he thinks three hours is sufficient notice since it takes him less than twenty minutes to shower, shave, and put on his dress uniform. He's probably intending to mention it when he gets back from Europe on Friday."

"Saturday. There was a complication with Germany given Loki's earlier visit." Natasha dusted cinnamon and sugar off her fingers. "Mission's been extended for twenty-four."

"Fortunately," Pepper added, "you don't have to wait for Steve."

"Unfortunately..." Darcy put the remains of her taco on the plate and spread her hands. "...I have nothing to wear. And," she continued before Pepper opened her mouth, "no time and no money to go shopping."

"Take the afternoon," Natasha told her. "Book it as mission prep then charge the dress..."

"And accessories."

Natasha nodded at Pepper. "...and accessories to SHIELD."

"I can do that?" Darcy asked. 

Natasha shrugged. "Given that nearly all upper level power players are male, a significant amount of espionage hinges on high heels and cleavage."

"Glass ceilings everywhere," Pepper sighed.

"Tell me about it. Clint's ass has done it's distracting duty exactly twice in the last five years."

"Pity," Darcy said thoughtfully. The other two nodded as she pulled out her phone. "If Agent Coulson gives me the all clear... Wait. The boss and Clint are going, right? Neither of them mentioned..."

"Two guys," Pepper interrupted, holding up a pair of exquisitely manicured fingers. "Who can also get showered, shaved, and dressed in less than twenty minutes."

"As long as they don't shower together," Natasha muttered. "When that happens you pray to any gods who might be listening that you're not on a schedule because it'll be up to you to make sure it's kept and that is not something you want to walk in on more than once. Or twice. Actually..."

"Okay. Got it. They're hot together." Darcy filed that information deep enough she hoped it wouldn't surface next time she had to go over scheduling with the boss. And then she remembered. "Medical hasn't cleared Agent Coulson for communal showering yet, so it won't be a problem."

Cheeks slightly pink, Pepper, folded her napkin on her empty plate and said, "Good. And I guarantee Tony won't give the fundraiser a thought until ninety minutes before he's due and I tell him he has half an hour to get downstairs."

"Plus, they'd have assumed Steve said something," Natasha pointed out as Darcy's phone buzzed.

"I have the afternoon and access to SHIELD credit." She was high fiving Pepper – Natasha's high fives hurt – when her phone buzzed again. "The boss says that if I can convince Dr. Wallace there's an emergency and get him out of the next two hours of tests, he'll pay for the shoes."

"If Coulson wants an emergency..."

"Not a real emergency," Darcy interrupted hurriedly as Natasha started to stand. "And if he skips these tests, he'll start thinking he can skip all of them. Bad precedent!" Natasha looked dubious and seeing as Pepper got to her feet as well, Darcy stood too. "You're coming shopping with me, right? I mean, I can buy vintage like nobody's business, but evidence suggest actual classy formal wear that takes these..." She waved a hand at the front of her blue silk shirt. "...into account, may be beyond me."

Pepper had her phone out. "I'm sorry, Darcy, I have to get back to the office."

"But I'm yours for the afternoon." Natasha grinned. "You're going to need alterations to conceal weapons."

Darcy glanced down and shrugged. "I always do."

***

"Can I what?" Darcy asked, lifting her forehead off her right knee and staring up at Natasha.

"Dance." Arms folded, Natasha looked generally disapproving. Darcy assumed she wasn't disapproving of Darcy's form while stretching, that was usually pretty specific. And occasionally painful. "Many American of your age have no idea of how to move on a dance floor."

"Hey, I've got moves!"

"Waltz? Foxtrot?" Both Natasha's brows had lifted into disdainful arcs. "These are the dances that Steve'll know."

"When you say waltz you're not saying standing and swaying with your hands in Jeremy Roberts' back pockets at your junior prom are you?"

Her smile was an edged flash of teeth. "Good call."

"That's what I was afraid of," Darcy sighed, rolling up onto her feet, admittedly with less effort than she'd have needed a month ago, and stepping off the edge of the mat. "But aren't I supposed to be learning to fight?"

"Learning the parameters of your body, what's it capable of, is part of learning to fight. Dancing will help." She smiled again. "Trust me."

Weirdly, _trust me_ spoken as threat was easy to believe. Plus, Darcy reasoned as Natasha moved closer, given the amount of skin her dress left uncovered, it wouldn't hurt to take a couple days off from being gracefully pummeled so the bruising could go down.

***

"Nana, don't worry, this won't be a repeat of Lucy's wedding." Darcy checked out her reflection in the full length mirror and took a deep breath. Everything stayed where it was supposed to, the crossed straps of the structured bodice supporting and lifting and just generally making the girls look like WMDs without the slightest hint of slutty – the hint of slutty having been taken care of by her lipstick, the new Black Widow Bite, almost the exact shade of deep burgundy as the heavy silk falling over her hips like a caress. Suddenly remembering she was on the phone with her grandmother, Darcy stopped running her hands over her own body, cleared her throat and said, "I have complete confidence in this dress."

"Bend over."

"Nana..."

"Do you remember what happened at Lucy's wedding? Do you remember bending over to pick up your napkin? Do you remember Pastor Reynolds leaving the ministry?"

"Yeah, like that was my fault," Darcy muttered, but she bent over anyway. Given that Natasha had ensured she could fight in the dress if necessary, bending seemed a bit redundant. She did not, however, want to point that out to her grandmother since that would only bring up her cousin Connie's wedding and the unfortunate incident with the ice sculpture and the foreign exchange student. A fight she'd totally kicked ass in, by the way. Without training. "The dress is functioning as designed, Nana. And that's Steve," she added at the familiar knock. "I have to go."

"Have fun, sweetie. Try and stay out of the tabloids."

"I'll do my best. Love you." She headed for the door, tossing the phone on the sofa as she passed. Pepper had set her up in one of the tower's guest suites for the night pointing out that she could enjoy herself more if she didn't have to go back to Brooklyn. Darcy, in turn, hadn't pointed out that Steve had an apartment in the tower and she had no intention of going back to Brooklyn. How anyone could actually _look_ at Steve and have problems with Captain America having sex was beyond her.

"JARVIS?"

"Agent Lewis."

She twirled on the spot. "Hot enough for a national icon?"

"Hard to say, Agent Lewis, as you appear to have over-heated my capacitors."

"Sweet talker." 

Steve hadn't got back to New York until mid afternoon and had gone directly into a debrief with Director Fury, Agent Coulson, and Thor. Darcy'd spent the day memorizing specs on the attending media – following the _you can't manipulate them if you don't know them_ maxim – as well as information on a few who weren't on the guest list but likely to show up anyway. They'd managed a quick phone call while Steve was on his way in from the airport and that had been that.

"Okay. Moment of truth." She took a deep breath, and opened the door.

"Da..." Steve's mouth opened and closed, but he couldn't seem to actually speak. His eyes were wide, cheeks and ear tips pink and growing pinker.

"JARVIS, as Captain Rogers is in the hall, did you get a shot of his expression?"

"I did, Agent Lewis."

"You're the best, J." Darcy'd seen Steve in his dress uniform on the news – everyone from CNN to alienconspiracy.com had covered the meeting in Brussels – but she hadn't quite realized the difference between working dress and formal dress. The short jacket made his shoulders look enormous while the cummerbund cinched his waist in and lengthened his legs. She bet she could see herself in the shine on his shoes should she look down, but she had no intention of looking away from his slow smile and the heat building in his eyes. "You look amazing."

His smile broadened. "I think that's supposed to be my line." 

"Too late, babe." Hand tucked under his lapel, she could feel his heart pounding through the superfine cotton of his shirt. "Better dial it up." 

His hands were warm on her hips. "I have never seen anything that looked as good as you do right now and I saw the sun rise seventy years after I'd been declared dead. I want to kiss you now, but I'll ruin your makeup."

Darcy tugged him forward. "We'll fix it."

They were twenty minutes late getting down to the fundraiser. Steve had turned out to be surprisingly good at repairing hairstyle damage.

Entering the ballroom on Steve's arm, she realized that two months ago, as cynical as she was, she'd have been one big nerve at the concept of socializing with an international crowd of entertainment elite – even given time spent with Thor – but since joining SHIELD she'd started working with celebrities who saved the world on a regular basis which made the more decorative type of celebrity significantly less intimidating.

Also: dating Captain freakin' America. Ha.

She circulated. She met people. She checked in with Agent Coulson. She deflected several inappropriate questions. She got into a conversation with a high profile gossip blogger and started a vicious and completely untrue – although entirely probable – rumor about a musician she'd overheard questioning Thor's taste in an "anorexic nerd". Jane, usually overwhelmed by flannel and fleece, looked ethereal in Grecian styled seafoam green and silver and said musician could just thank his lucky stars that Darcy hadn't been able to get to the taser strapped to her calf.

"If you ever get tired of SHIELD, come to work for me," Pepper said when told.

Natasha handed Darcy a flute of champagne and sighed, "How many times do I have to say we're keeping her?"

Darcy's first waltz with Steve devolved into giggles as he graciously helped her count the steps. Her waltz with Clint nearly devolved into a slap fight as he kept deliberately messing her up. Her waltz with Thor threw the numbers out the window. Her waltz with Dr. Banner made her want to slap everyone who stared sideways at him like he was a stick of sweating dynamite. Her waltz with Tony turned into a duel of innuendo. Her second waltz with Steve made her feel like it was okay to make mistakes and she nearly broke her own rule and told him she thought she was falling in love.

 _I love you_ sure, when it was time. _I think I'm falling in love with you_ worst of the romance cliches but, here and now, very tempting.

"What are you thinking about?" Steve asked quietly.

She grinned up at him as he moved them around the floor. "That I may have had about enough champagne."

"Good, because I don't want there to be the slightest possibility later that I could be taking advantage."

If he hadn't been holding her so securely, she'd have tripped. "Dr. Banner aside, Avengers and Avenger attendants have to stay until after one."

Steve leaned forward and breathed _anticipation_ against her hair. Here and now, Darcy thought she kind of hated him a bit too.

Dancing with the Avengers drew other partners and at twelve fourteen while Steve was across the room talking with Colonel Rhodes, Darcy found herself fending off the increasingly unwelcome attention of an A-lister's abandoned arm-candy. When she finally convinced him to get her another drink – clearly he was all up with taking advantage – she bent for her taser.

"This is a fundraiser for the rebuilding of New York, Agent Lewis..."

Darcy turned to see AD Hill standing behind her looking like a blade in a red sheath dress. 

"...we do not tase the guests no matter how unpleasant."

Straightening, Darcy rolled her eyes. "Yes, ma'am."

AD Hill rolled her eyes in turn. "I didn't tell you not to teach him a lesson, just..." She turned to go as Abandoned Arm-candy returned. "...no weapons. The balcony's free."

Abandoned Arm-candy was more than happy to follow Darcy out to the balcony. Even happier to make a grab for her ass the moment they were alone. Less happy when he hit the tile clutching his crotch and trying to breath through a bloody nose.

"Your nose to elbow offense, on the other hand," Natasha murmured stepping out of the shadows as though they'd just been in the middle of the conversation, "is excellent."

"Darcy, Tony wants to know if..." Pepper paused and let the balcony door close behind her. She glanced down at the young man whimpering on the floor, up at Darcy, and shook her head. "JARVIS."

"Ms. Potts."

"Please see to it that someone takes out the trash."

"It would be my pleas..." The sky to the east lit up. "Warning! Incoming alien craft!"

And from the ballroom, Steve's voice, "Avengers assemble!"

"Seriously?" Dary asked. "He says that?"

Natasha shrugged.

There were a number of things about her job that drove Darcy crazy, but, as she hauled up her skirts and ran with the others, how could she not love the women...


	7. To Being an Us for Once, Instead of a Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It was a national emergency forty-eight hours ago," Darcy snorted. "Then a member of a royal family in another country announced she was pregnant, a Texas politician claimed the Bible allowed him to marry his sister-in-law – his wife, by the way, not thrilled – and one of the Kardashians had a wardrobe malfunction on Good Morning America. Although," she added thoughtfully, "there _was_ a whole twitter stream blaming the aliens for the sudden appearance of admittedly impressive boobage over breakfast."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it turns out l had a year. And a bit. I apologize for the delay, I thank you for sticking with me, and, given the year, I'm more grateful than I can say for your comments and kudos.
> 
> Additional note 25/08/15: Thanks to Liliet for turning my bablefish Russian into something a native Russian speaker would say.

At 9:45 Darcy stood just inside the door of Phil Coulson's office and sighed. Clearly, when Clint was unavailable to escort him home, the whole "out of the office at six" thing became dust in the wind. And Clint had been unavailable for the last three days. The six alien ships that had attacked New York the night of the party had been drones and a diversion; a seventh alien energy signature had come through the hole in space out over the Hudson...

_"Hole in space? Seriously, that's what we're calling it?"_

_Tony shrugged, the motion exaggerated by the suit. "It's a hole in space. Truth in advertising. At least this time they put the lid down."_

...and then disappeared. SHIELD had made finding the additional visitor their top priority and the Avengers had been sent out after every viable lead. Seventy-two hours later, they'd closed down a tailgate party that had gotten severely out of hand in Norman, Oklahoma, scared the pants off four teenagers making crop circles in Iowa, and nearly had to fight their way out of a seniors' community in New Smyrna, Florida, but had come no closer to finding the seventh ship.

"You look like crap, Boss."

He glanced up from his computer screen, the new angle turning the bags under his eyes a lurid purple. "Did you need something, Agent Lewis?"

"I need you to not collapse on my watch."

"Then you may return to your desk and continue sending the official response to every level one report of bright lights in the sky." He dropped his gaze back down to the screen "I have no intention of collapsing on your watch, or on anyone else's."

"Sorry, Boss, but your words and your body are saying two entirely different things." She shifted her cellphone to her right hand and raised her left. "Your skin is grey." She flicked one finger up. "And clammy. Clammy enough I can see the light reflecting off surface moisture from here which, I have to say, so not attractive." The second finger rose. "Your lips are edged in blue." Third finger. "Your shoulders are at two different levels; one rolled up and in, the other down and back. Which, by the way, neat trick." Fourth finger. "And your hands are shaking." Thumb. "Five observable symptoms. More disturbingly, you've loosened your tie and the top two buttons of your shirt are open. Now, back when I first got this job, Director Fury told me to do what I thought was necessary to keep you alive so I considered putting a sedative in your coffee and steering you over to your incredibly comfy couch, but you'd have figured out I'd done it before your ass hit the leather – because duh, Agent Coulson – and, if I didn't immediately become yet another notch on your desk, the latest in the long list of ex-assistants, well, you'd never trust another coffee I brought you which would, given your intake, be a lot of distrust."

"I don't notch my desk..."

"Metaphorically notched."

His brows drew in, but the frown he tried to pin her with had lost it's power. "Speaking of coffee, Agent Lewis, how much have you had today?"

Darcy shook her head and tucked the hair that fell out of her clip behind her ear. "Not talking about me right now, Boss. The point is, I am not the sort of person who'd screw with you in an effort to get you to take care of yourself. Mostly, because I know I wouldn't get away with it. So I'm asking you, up front, to please go home, take your meds, and get some sleep. We have nothing streaming right now that requires an analyst of your ability and if anything should turn up while you're at the tower, JARVIS will wake you and patch you in."

"And if I'm not at the tower, we won't have to depend on civilian technology to contain a state of national emergency."

"It was a national emergency forty-eight hours ago," Darcy snorted. "Then a member of a royal family in another country announced she was pregnant, a Texas politician claimed the Bible allowed him to marry his sister-in-law – his wife, by the way, not thrilled – and one of the Kardashians had a wardrobe malfunction on Good Morning America. Although," she added thoughtfully, "there _was_ a whole twitter stream blaming the aliens for the sudden appearance of admittedly impressive boobage over breakfast."

Coulson drew in a deep, careful breath and said, "The Cardassians were the enemy in DS9." 

"In what?" She really hoped he wasn't so exhausted he'd started giving away state secrets. 

"It was a... Never mind." He forced himself to straighten and Darcy wondered if he honestly thought she'd miss, or ignore, the sudden beads of sweat on his forehead. "I'm staying for the same reason you're staying, Agent Lewis. There's a job to be done."

"Still not talking about me, Boss. Everyone who's recovering from death after being skewered by a magical spear wielded by a not entirely sane demi-god slash alien raise your left hand." She crossed the office until she stood on the other side of the desk and lowered her voice. "Except you can't raise your left hand because you've stopped using it; it's been all right hand typing and mouse work since seven. I gave you almost three hours to go home on your own before I said something."

"Agent Lewis..."

"Agent Coulson, are you refusing to go home even though you are objectively close to a relapse and I have asked you nicely, not to mention completely sans subterfuge?"

A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Yes, Agent Lewis, I am refusing to go home. Now, I want you..."

Darcy held up the cell phone and turned on the speaker. Half a ring then a familiar voice.

"Phil, babe, go home."

He blinked. "Clint?"

"You promised you'd take care of yourself while I was gone."

"The seventh alien..."

"Has gone to grou... Tony! I will fucking end you if you eat my corndog!" There was the sound of a brief struggle then Clint returned, a little breathless. "Real corndog, by the way. Not a euphemism. It seems Mister I Once Ate Popcorn out of a Ming Vase had never had one before and I don't hear you getting ready to leave."

"I'm not..."

"We'll need you at your best when we find this thing and you sound exhausted."

"How can you tell?" The eye roll was classic Coulson. "You've only let me say six words."

"And they sounded exhausted. Also, it's nine forty-eight and I'm guessing you didn't go home at six last night or the night before either. Can you honestly tell me you haven't worked yourself into near collapse? You can't, can you? Please, Phil. Go home." 

"There's too much..."

"Darce, give Phil the phone. You don't need to hear this."

She handed it over, turned, crossed to look out the window at the rain washed streets of lower Manhattan, and hummed Rufus Wainwright's 14th Street in an attempt to give them the illusion of privacy – although with the speaker off she couldn't hear Clint at all and Agent Coulson's voice had dropped to a low murmur. Sure, she could've left the office and gone back to her desk, but she wasn't one hundred percent positive she wouldn't be locked out.

"Agent Lewis."

He'd hung up by the time she turned, her phone on the desk, his cane in his hand, and his breathing short and shallow as he struggled to his feet. She wanted to help him but his expression suggested it would be a very bad idea so instead she got his overcoat from the hook by the door and held it out for him to carefully slide his arms into. Well, technically, she slid it up over his left arm but close enough for government work. "I'll walk you down to the street so you can let me know what you need me to get finished tonight."

_Which is a perfectly valid reason for me to be with you and no one needs to know it's because I'm afraid you'll weeble, wooble, and fall down on your own, right?_

Darcy admitted that was fairly involved subtext but Coulson had been in the spy business for a long time and the spy business was all about subtext. Occasionally explosions, but mostly subtext. When he finally nodded, she took her place at his right side.

He said nothing until they were standing on the sidewalk waiting for the cab Darcy'd flagged. Then he said, "You called my husband."

"As a last resort."

"Well played." His eyes narrowed and he hit her with what Darcy liked to call his _you wouldn't like Antarctica_ face. "Never do it again."

"Wouldn't think of it, Boss. This was a one time thing." 

He held her gaze for a long moment then shook his head and reached for the cab door. "I'd appreciate it if you'd make an effort when you lie to me, Agent Lewis."

"Noted for next time, sir."

As the cab merged into traffic, she called Pepper and gave her a head's up. Pepper would make meeting Agent Coulson in the lobby look like a happy coincidence and Darcy wouldn't have to explain to Director Fury why she'd let his one good eye slap a face print onto the shiny marble floor of Stark Tower.

Hopefully, they'd find the seventh ship before the situation escalated to the point where she had to ask Captain America to send the Boss a selfie of his disappointed face to get him to go home.

***

"Seriously, Sam? It's pushing one thirty in the AM." Darcy blocked the exit attempt with her foot then scooped the big orange cat up into her arms. Sam rubbed the top of his head against her chin and began to purr. "I mean, I can sort of understand why you're up... Hey! Dude, paw out of the cleavage. Cats are all about the night life, right? But your person, she's what? Hundred and two, hundred and three? She doesn't need to be up at this hour, wondering where the hell you are."

Climbing to the fourth floor felt like climbing Everest and Darcy gave half a thought to falling over in Steve's apartment on three. "Except, if I put you down right now, you're going run right back to the front door, aren't you?"

Sam purred louder, popped another button on her pea-jacket, and shoved a hind leg between her breasts.

"Great, I'm getting more action from the neighbour's cat than from my boyfriend." She could call Clint because that was part of her job and, technically, she could call Captain America – also part of her job. But she didn't want to talk to Captain America, she wanted to talk to Steve. Where "talk" meant a little kissing, a little cuddling, and with a little luck, some serious naked time. Not that if Captain America showed up instead of Steve, she'd turn down serious naked time; she'd watched him walk away in those tights. 

"Oh wonderful. Sleep deprivation leads to fantasizing about an imaginary threesome with my boyfriend and his not so secret, secret identity." She staggered as Sam butted her in the chin with the top of his head. "Yeah, you're right. That's really more a plus than a min... OW!"

Turned out, cat claws in the boob was an effective wake-up call. Feeling more aware than she had for hours, Darcy sucked air in through her teeth, released it with a pained hiss, then unbuttoned her coat and pried Sam's claws out of her flesh.

Except that wasn't her hissing, that was Sam.

She looked up to see a short, bearded man in glasses descending toward them. Or not short, just portioned really weirdly. Or her eyes were crossing from the pain. It was hard to say. 

Sam hissed as he went by.

He ducked his head and moved a little faster. 

Darcy had to admit Sam's reaction was justified. The puffy, silver lame jacket was definitely 90's retro but the green checked pants were too matchy matchy with the thick green eyeglass frames, loop of fuzzy green scarf, and green suede sneakers. "Hipsters," she muttered, shifting the cat. "You're doing it wrong."

As she reached the fourth floor, Sylvia's door opened and the old woman reached for Sam with phlegmy snort that might have been derision and might have been dairy products. "You have first aide kit?"

"What?"

"You have blood on your shirt."

Darcy looked down to see three reddish brown spots in the pale blue fabric of her blouse. "Shit."

"Blood," Sylvia cackled.

Even through her returning exhaustion, Darcy was impressed. She'd never heard anyone actually cackle before. 

"Cat scratches need tending," the older woman continued, shifting Sam's weight to her hip. "Iodine. Vodka. Soak blouse in cold water. Hot cooks proteins. I have much experience to remove blood stains."

"Okay. Great. Thank you." Another time, Darcy might have asked about that experience, since Sylvia seemed in the mood to share, but she just didn't have the energy. The door to her apartment beckoned and she stumbled forward as Sylvia's door closed behind her. Another half a dozen steps and she was...

"You're up late." Although, Rob had wrapped an Iron Man snugglie around Hulk pajamas he still shivered in the cold of the hall. "Clubbing?"

"Working," she murmured, digging for her keys, happy he hadn't wrapped himself in Captain America because it would be too weird seeing her boyfriend wrapped around a gorgeous gay dude. Okay, also hot. But still weird because he had a girlfriend. Unless she'd set it up, then it would just be hot. 

"Darcy?"

"Sorry." She blinked herself back to the hall. "Free associating." 

"What happened...?" He waved a hand at her chest.

"Puberty." When Rob made sound halfway between choking and a snicker, she took another look. "Oh, you meant the stain. Sam. He took offence to a silver lame leprechaun," she added, poking her key at the lock.

"Ah. One of the guys working on the roof."

"How do you know that? Never mind, you probably asked him in for margaritas."

"And it's a noticeable ensemble."

"True that." She noted he didn't deny asking the dude in for a drink. "Why would they be working on the roof at this hour?"

"New York never sleeps." 

"Tell me about it. Oh thank fuck," she muttered as the lock finally turned. "Good night, Rob. You and one third of the Avengers can go back to bed now, I'm safely home."

"Lock the door behind you."

"Yes, Dad." She closed the door on his blown kisses and sagged against it for a moment before smacking the wall in the general direction of the light switch. 

As it happened, she didn't have a first aid kit. She had a freezer full of ice packs and half empty tube of arnica cream – SHIELD training was big on bruises and aching muscles – and she'd meant to pick up one of the massive first aid kits they issued to probationary agents in what she could only assume was part of the continuing effort to freak them the hell out, but she hadn't had time to get to QS. She didn't have any vodka either. Splashing PBR on her boobs, while it _would_ remind her of those carefree days of college life when she'd actually managed to get some sleep, would probably do nothing for the cat scratches.

"Mouthwash it is then." A capful would probably do the... "FUCKING OW!"

Making a mental note that she'd most likely spill any number of secrets were she ever to be tortured with cheap mouthwash in an open wound, Darcy plugged in her phone, set her glasses down beside it, moved her right boot off her pillow – with no idea how it got there – and collapsed onto the bed. 

Seconds later, her phone rang.

No, not her phone. Her alarm. She fumbled for her glasses, checked the time, and realized she'd already hit the _no running today, my boyfriend's chasing aliens_ snooze without, apparently, waking up.

"No way that was four hours." Except it was. Had been. "Fuck."

She rolled over, stared at the ceiling and...

Her phone rang. This time it was definitely her phone because Tony had loaded the new phones with a program that changed everyone's ring tone for Steve back to Star Spangled Man. It was also twenty minutes later.

"Son of a... Hi, babe!" 

"You sound out of breath. Did you just get back from your run?"

Lying to your boyfriend was bad. Lying to Captain America, impossible. "No, I slept in."

"Aren't you going to be la..."

"No, I'm good. I'm all about the speedy." Or the stumble as far as the bathroom. Her left breast hurt when she moved and squinting down she realized the cat scratches were red and swollen. "Do you have a first aid kit? Never mind of course you do. Rephrasing: Where is your first aid kit?"

"In the bathroom under the sink. What...?"

"Cat scratch. Ses. Plural. Sam objected to a badly put together hipster roofer last night."

In the long pause, she could hear Tony in the background yelling about real maple syrup. "I don't know what that means."

"It's... complicated. I'll explain when you get back. You are coming back, right? Someday?"

"Today. Or tomorrow," he added before she could get too excited. "While you're in my apartment, can you water my plant?"

"You have a plant?" Thumbing him onto speaker, cranking the volume as high as it would go, she set the phone down by the sink and stepped into the shower trying to visualize Steve's apartment. Kitchen, living room, door to the elusive bedroom... plant hanging in the kitchen window. SHIELD training at work. Senior agents probably kicked ass at Where's Waldo.

"Tony gave it to me. He said I shouldn't be alone. Before I met you. Are you showering?"

"Yes. I am both wet and naked. And alone. Wet and naked and alone..."

"Darcy."

She grinned at the rough edge on his voice. "Wet and naked and alone with no one to wash my back..."

"Darcy!"

"Sorry."

"No, you're not."

"No, I'm not."

"Wait... You're showering with your phone? Can you do that?" 

"No." Frowning, she reached for the conditioner. "Actually, maybe. Ask Tony." For all she knew, the new Stark Phones were waterproof. Not that she wanted anything designed by Tony Stark in the shower with her. He definitely had an app for that. "You know he's probably bugged your plant, right?"

"Yeah, I took care of it..."

Tony needed reminding Steve wasn't just a pretty face. 

...but I don't want to come home to a dead plant. That's just..."

"Depressing. Yes, I will water your plant before I go to work. It's what girlfriends do."

There was another long pause. In the background, Tony offered to buy someone Vermont. 

"Steve?"

"Is it? What girlfriends do?" The hint of wonder in his voice made her want to climb through the phone and then climb him like a tree. "You're my first, so... I mean, me and Bucky... that is, we used to double but even the second girl was really there for him and the girls in the chorus were friends and they were girls but you know and Peggy and I... we had an understanding, but I never had anyone who'd water my plant befo... Yes, Tony, I know what euphemism means and that wasn't one. Because it's a private conversation. Because I don't want my plant to die!" Darcy heard him sigh even over the sound of running water. "Tony says hello."

She turned off the shower and stepped out into the bathroom. "Tell Tony I said what up, Tinman, back at him. And if you want, we can _totally_ make plant watering a euphemism. It could stand for all sorts of things your girlfriend is willing to do for you. To you. With you." 

"I want." The rough edge was back.

"Come home."

"As soon as I can."

Darcy felt a "love you" rising and managed a quick, "Later, babe." and a disconnect before the words made it out of her mouth. "Oh yeah," she muttered as she dried off, "not saying _that_ unless I'm sure I mean it." Captain America had probably heard it a thousand times, yelled out over the footlights, or later by grateful men and women in France, but if Steve hadn't heard it before, she wasn't going to cheapen his first time by just tossing it out there.

She grinned as she searched for clean clothes. And if Steve thought she hadn't heard that pause after "me and Bucky"...well, he'd be wrong.

 

***

Steve's bathroom was about twice the size of Darcy's – convenient since hers was about half the size of Steve. A quick snoop in his medicine cabinet exposed toothpaste, a toothbrush, mouthwash, deodorant, and a tube of hair cream. The cream was a brand that had probably been around since before he'd hit the deep freeze and she had no idea they still made. It did, however, explain the faint scent memory she'd get every now and then of old Mr. Sloane, the crossing guard at her middle school, whose thinning hair had been laid out in glistening strands across a pale scalp.

"Yeah, so do not need to think of Mr. Sloane while proceeding in a disorderly fashion with Steve." She shoved the tube in her jacket pocket and made a mental note to grab him something new. Maybe they made one that smelled like tequila. She was all for being reminded of body shots.

The first aide kit under the sink was one of biggest Dary had ever seen. In with the bandages – pressure, tensor, and Iron Man – were scalpels, sewing kits, capped needles labelled _adrenaline_ and something that looked like it was either a rib spreader or speciality tongs for lifting chickens out of roasting pans. Which was not to say it couldn't be used for both.

"SHIELD doesn't seem to have grip on the concept of first aide," she muttered uncapping the antibiotic cream. "This thing goes up to sixth aide at least." Better not to think about why Steve, who could and had healed from a gunshot wound in a couple of hours, felt he needed to be able to go all John Travolta on a dance floor. She wondered if Pulp Fiction was even on Steve's _cultural catching up with movies_ list – although SHIELD rumour insisted it was one of Director Fury's favourite movies. Second only to Snakes on a Plane. 

The antibiotic cream also contained a topical analgesic and the cat scratches seemed to be throbbing a little less viciously as she adjusted the neckline of her grey sweater back up into _suitable for office wear_ territory and shrugged back into her jacket. 

Since watering Captain America's plant – non-euphemistically – wasn't likely to be an acceptable excuse for arriving late to work, she dumped a cup of water into the pot, spun it so the other side was facing the window, and turned...

...to find a short bearded man in a puffy silver lame jacket over blue checked pants which were being all matchy matchy with the thick blue eyeglass frames, loop of fuzzy blue scarf, and blue suede sneakers.

"Okay, one, that's just wrong. And two, what are you doing in here? Working on the roof doesn't mean you can just walk in to..." Actually, he couldn't just walk in. She distinctly remembered locking the door behind her. Dodging right as he moved toward her, she shoved her hand into her pocket and pulled out the tube of hair cream. "I don't want to use this," she growled, flipping the cap open with her thumb, "because it's one of the nastiest things R&D has ever come up with, but if you don't get your fake hipster ass out of here, I'll melt your face off."

For a moment, she thought it just might have worked. He stopped, blinked, and stared at her for a moment. Then he charged forward and grabbed her arm. But not the arm that ended in the hand controlling the hair cream. 

So she emptied the tube on his face.

Which started to smoke.

"You have got to be shitting me!" No way Steve actually had a tube of R&D's face melting hair cream in his bathroom. As the fake hipster started to scream, Darcy kicked him in the knee – which bent in a weird squishy way under her Doc's – and ran for the door. By the time she reached the stairs, she had her phone in her hand and... "No signal? And no wifi? Yeah, like that isn't entirely sus..."

A fake hipster dude with orange trimmings stared up at her from six steps down. He blinked, exactly the way Blue Trimmings had and spread his arms.

"You think I can't get by that?"

His fingers elongated to touch the walls on either side.

"Shit." She headed back to the fourth floor, two steps at a time. If she could get to her apartment, she could smash the lock in such a way that it'd set off alarms at SHIELD. Or the NYPD. Or the SPCA. As long as someone got the message.

Sylvia's door opened as she passed it. 

"Again, shit!" Sylvia was one tough old lady, but fake hipster dudes were totally out of her league. Darcy spun around in see Sylvia point a weapon about as big around as Darcy's thigh at Orange Trimmings.

"Zhrite plasmu, suki!" 

She wanted him to eat something, although Darcy had no idea of what and then her inability to translate became kind of moot when a blast of blue radiation totally smoked Orange Trimmings' silver puffy jacket and threw him back down the stairs. All the way back to three, from the sound of the bounce, bounce, thud, splat.

"Whoa! It's me!" Darcy held up her hands in the universal sign for _don't blow holes in me_ as Sylvia turned to face her, muzzle of the weapon still glowing faintly blue.

"Szadi!" 

"Behind me? Oh..." Dropping to the floor, she shrugged one arm out of her backpack straps and grabbed her taser from the side pocket, fumbling a little with the thumbprint lock. Another blast of blue energy and Red Trimmings went down, but Yellow Trimmings was barely an arm's length away. Darcy rolled up onto her knees and let him have the full charge, right in the crotch.

He screamed. No surprise. 

He also sparked and grew four feet in every direction, clothes and all. That kind of surprised her – and not only because poor Bruce always lost _his_ pants.

And he looked pissed. Again, no surprise.

Darcy threw herself backward, tucking and rolling up onto her feet the way Natasha had taught her. "Sylvia! You got another shot in that thing?"

"It's recharging!"

"Anything else handy?"

"No. I'm not allowed firearms after incident with squirrel."

"Seriously?"

"The squirrel is a joke. Kids..."

They were standing shoulder to shoulder now; Yellow Trimmings watching Sylvia's weapon but shuffling back when Darcy waved the taser at him, beanie whitening as his head dug a trench in the ceiling.

"Okay, but what do you call the big, fat, blue stick of sparkle if not a weapon?"

"A compromise."

"Right." They took two steps back and Yellow Trimmings' shuffled one forward, shoving Red Trimming's still smoking body out of the way. Darcy decided to file the fact that Red Trimmings was twitching as well as smoking under too much information, and ignore it. "I don't think the door'll stop the big dude for long, but if we can get into your apartment we may be able to stall until... SH... help comes."

"Please." Given how close they were standing, Sylvia's snort had an uncomfortably damp blast radius. "Ot SHIELD tolku kak ot kozla moloka!"

"Yeah, didn't get... wait." Milk from a male goat? As much use from SHIELD as milk from a male goat. Darcy was fairly confident that had to be the Russian equivalent to tits on a bull. "You're not..."

"I'm ex-KGB. Used to spy at the UN so when the Soviet Union fell, I retired in New York. As a favour to Natasha, I agreed to keep an eye on you and Captain Capitalist Propaganda."

"Captain Capitalist Propaganda? That's so cold war."

"I'm old." She shrugged and reached behind her to open the door. 

"Sam! No!" 

Darcy grabbed the cat at the top of the stairs and straightened to find herself staring at Orange Trimmings. He was climbing like all his parts didn't quite fit, wearing the same determined expression she'd just seen on Sylvia's face. No. Wearing Sylvia's face. Even creepier, Blue Trimmings was right behind him, wearing a copy of her face. And, given the way his jacket now puffed out even further, her boobs as well. 

Sam hissed.

"You said it, Sam. Like I'd be caught dead in that outfit!" Covering her retreat with the taser, she backed up to Sylvia's open door and handed her the yowling cat as...

...Yellow Trimmings' enormous hand closed over her shoulder. Sylvia started to step forward, Sam dangling under one arm, weapon propped up in the other but Orange and Blue had reached the top of the stairs and were both stumbling down the hall so Darcy reached in, grabbed the handle and pulled the door shut yelling, "Call for backup!"

Yellow yanked and she fell back against him, sank into the jacket, and jerked forward again as the contact discharged a brilliant yellow spark. "Son of a fucking OW!" Her fingers spasmed and she lost her grip on the taser, Yellow's hold on her shoulder the only thing keeping her more or less upright. Both Blue and Orange dove out of the way as the taser bounced past them and Darcy decided to count that as a pumice... pancake... plastic... something that started with a pee victory. 

She snickered. "Pee victory. And you're yellow. Get it?"

As Yellow began dragging her down the hall, she tried to sweep his legs out from under him, but realized, after a moment, that her lower legs were flopping against the floor. Yellow was people sized again. Fake hipster sized. She giggled. Tried to remember what was so funny. Discovered she was being dragged between Yellow and Blue past her apartment.

"Oh sure," she thought musily as her head flopped toward the door across the hall, her glasses skewed diagonally across her face, "when I really need a margarita, where the hell are you?" 

***

The light was wrong. Or she'd fallen asleep wearing a pair of Clint's purple sunglasses again. Seriously, if this was another teach Thor about bodyshots situation, she was so going to owe Steve the apology to end all apologies. Unless it had been a teach Steve about bodyshots situation in which case she could only pray Jarvis had recorded the event because all she could remember was...

A puffy silver jacket?

Blinking rapidly managed to clear most of the scum off her eyeballs. The left lens of her glasses rested against her cheek, but the right was useable as long as she closed her left eye. After a quick look around, she closed her right eye as well.

Of the four fake hipsters, only Yellow and Red still looked hipstery. The hipster previously known as Orange looked like Sylvia: bathrobe, fuzzy slippers, cat scratches. Previously known as Blue, looked like her: boobs, Docs, backpack hanging off one shoulder – only with burn scars she hadn't noticed before on one cheek. Behind them, an oval opening in the wall, carefully not meeting anyone's gaze, two bipedal aliens. Well, technically, she amended silently, six bipedal aliens, but only two of them looked like aliens. Like aliens made out of blueish grey playdoh by an not very artistic middle schooler who hadn't gotten around to creating clothing.

Original Green Hipster Alien was unaccounted for. So seven she knew of. Maybe more. She was at one end of a room about three meters long and two wide. The wall to her left curved toward the wall on the right, like she was in half an arc. Or the cylindrical part of a space ship. The oval opening was in the far end of the right wall, past the small crowd. Oh, and, most importantly, she seemed to be secured to the wall behind her at every point of contact.

Before she could open her eyes again, someone gently tucked the left arm of her glasses back over her ear and settled them in their proper place on her nose.

The fake hipsters were wearing glasses, she realized opening her eyes, so they'd know... Nope. They had no idea the glasses came off. Not from the way they were watching Darcy-copy tug at hers. She hissed in pain – although it could have been hissing in joy for all Darcy knew, hello, aliens – and while the glasses compacted under her grip, they didn't move.

"Oh, I get it."

The two unformed aliens jerked at the sound of her voice and dove out the hole in the wall.

"You're shapeshifters and you landed here waiting for Captain America to come back – which is why you followed me into his apartment – so you could shift into super soldiers. You clearly need a moment's contact to shift – Blue didn't shift into me, immediately – and you can, just as clearly, copy each other with a few basic variations given the whole rainbows and hipsters thing. On the other hand, you've also set up space for keeping a captive – love what you've done with the place – so the odds are high, the copies of copies aren't as... _definitive_ as the original copy, also referencing the rainbow thing, and you planned to take Captain America with you. Now, given that you certainly can't takeover Earth with the number of aliens who'll fit in a ship that'll fit on this particular roof without collapsing it, I suspect you're planning to take him home, keep him on tap to make more super soldiers until you have a super soldier army and either revolt or rebel or otherwise kick alien ass which, quite frankly, is none of our business – except for the whole kidnapping Captain America thing. Must've really toasted your oats when he went off searching for you and you were right here waiting to be found. Now you've got me, you're hoping he'll come quietly without a fight."

All four aliens frowned at her. 

"Come on, guys, not exactly toots original planning."

Sylvia-copy snorted and they all headed for the hole in the wall.

"What? Did I steal your chance to do the bad-guy monologue thing?"

The hole closed behind them – the wall suddenly filling the space where it had been – and whatever it was that had been holding her to the wall released.

"I thought they'd never leave," she muttered, sliding to the floor.

First rule after being left alone in a cell according to SHIELD's So You've Been Captured, Don't Just Sit Around and Bleed: Check the cell for surveillance. Don't give anything away – not your physical condition nor your plans for escape – until you know they're not watching you. Or possibly don't give anything away after you know they're watching you. Or both. In all honesty, Darcy'd fixated a bit on the possibility of bleeding and hadn't been paying as much attention as she should've been.

This particular cell had no distinguishing features, just bluish grey walls the same colour as the unformed aliens. Hello, again. _Aliens._ For all she knew, the walls were see through from the other side and they were watching her every move. How the hell was she supposed to know what alien tech looked like?

Rule two: Establish your physical condition. 

Killer headache, probably from the electrical charge. Slight feelings of embarrassment at being captured by hipsters. And she had to pee.

Another glance around the cell reestablished the total lack of toilet facilities.

"Wonderful."

Rule three: Take inventory.

 _" Do not discount anything you may be carrying. The story about the gummy bears, true. I was there. The story about the sock garters, also true and there's an automatic pass in Advanced Interrogation for anyone who can get the details because neither Agent Coulson nor Agent Romanoff are willing to share – and yes, I have used_ I've seen you naked we have nothing to hide _on both of them to no effect. And speaking of naked, or mostly naked. If you're wearing an underwire bra, you have a set of lockpics. Said lockpicks have saved my ass on three separate occasions even though I personally was not wearing the garment in question." Clint grinned and flexed his pecs under his field-suit. "I am bodaciously perky without external support. That said, you should also be carrying lock picks just so the bad guys have something to take away. It makes them feel like they're in control and you want them lulled into a false sense of security."_

Unfortunately, because she hadn't had time to do laundry, Darcy was wearing one of her Tony Stark designed sports bras. Comfortable and supportive but totally lacking in lock picking assistance. On the other hand...

"Jarvis?"

No reply but, given Tony, totally worth a shot.

The aliens had thought her glasses were part of her face. More importantly, they thought her backpack was... A hump? Point was, they hadn't take it away from her. And in her backpack she had...

Not her taser. That had last been seen on the floor in the hall.

Her phone. Her Starkpad. No signal on either. No surprise; if the ship hadn't been heavily shielded, they'd have found it by now. 

Two sets of earbuds.

Half a powerbar, an apple, a bpa free refillable water-bottle, and two frozen chicken wieners wrapped in enough layers of aluminium foil that they'd be thawed but still cold by lunch time. She really had to find time to buy groceries.

Hair brush. Makeup case holding tinted moisturizer, two lipsticks, eyeliner, and mascara. Three condoms. Two tampons.

Her wallet. Seventeen dollars and twenty-three cents in cash. Two credit cards. A picture of her grandmother wearing a purple mini dress and a wreath of flowers resting on dark hair as thick and wild as Darcy's. A coffee stained envelope covered in math that Jane said explained why the subway only ran on time when Darcy wasn't in a hurry. Fourteen coffee receipts. 

"Man, I hope those are deductible..."

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, elbows on her knees, chin in her cupped hands, she studied her supplies. And thought about the aliens. Who'd reacted to what she'd said the shaving cream would do. And shifted to look like her and Sylvia without meaning to. Who'd shifted spontaneously in response to the taser charge. Who when still in blobby biped form had been careful to avoid anyone's gaze.

"Okay, they're really freakin' suggestible."

The hole in the wall had closed in a way that suggested the wall had shifted. Was it possible the entire ship was a larger version of the alien; shifted to get them through space? Was she sitting inside...

"Ew."

But the ships they'd shot down, hadn't been organic so the odds were high that it was nothing more complicated than their tech being based on shifting. Alien tech...

Darcy tapped a fingernail against her front teeth, then reached for her Starkpad. Credit where credit was due, Tony Stark designed kickass batteries. With a full charge... Just to be on the safe side, she pulled the battery from her Starkphone as well. Then she reached for the frozen wieners.

She had no idea how long it took her to get ready but the wieners were still stiff when she discharged both batteries into the wall where the hole had been. The hole snapped open so fast it actually made a BOING sound. Darcy leapt through as it snapped shut and pulled the skirt of her pea-jacket free when it BOINGED open again. 

"Yeah, like that wouldn't have been embarrassing," she muttered, following the slight rise in the corridor. Seven steps. Eight. Around a corner...

...and into what looked like a control room cobbled together from a variety of bad SF movies. All seven of the aliens were there, checking dials and gauges and looking out the big curved window at the rooftops of Brooklyn. As they turned to face her, she raised the wieners – now rearranged inside the aluminium into the shape of a gun. 

"This is the most powerful blaster in the world. Now, I obviously used it to get out of my cell, but how badly did that drain it? The question you have to ask yourself... do you feel lucky?" She raised an eyebrow at the Sylvia-copy moving toward her and the Sylvia-copy moved back. "Smart. Here's what we're going to do. You're going to let me out onto the roof and then you're going to go home. You haven't actually hurt anyone, and you could have – even your drones kept the property damage to a minimum although that might have been because they blew up really easily. Anyway, we'll just ignore the whole intention of kidnapping Captain America thing if you promise to never return."

The aluminium foil grew warm in her grip and one of the blobby aliens jerked back from the control panel.

"You scanned it, didn't you?" Just a guess, but from their reactions, the right one. "And there was a whole lot in there you couldn't identify, wasn't there?" What did she know about alien tech? What the did aliens know about Earth tech? What did anyone know about the ingredients in wieners? "Don't make me use this again."

Hands held out from her sides, Darcy-copy stepped forward.

Darcy held her ground.

The copy stopped about a meter away.

Darcy met her gaze and held it. 

After a moment, Darcy-copy blinked and all the blurry bits, like the glasses, snapped into focus – the last pixels settling in. "Can you talk? Out loud? I mean, if you're telepaths, there's this bald dude you really need to meet."

Darcy-copy opened her mouth, but what came out wasn't English. 

"Ah, you have tech that translates what I'm saying but it doesn't matter if I understand you because you never actually intended to talk to us?"

Darcy-copy nodded.

"Harsh. It's all about the dialogue. Wait, does nodding mean yes in alien? Because context is everything and we've got bupkus. It could mean yes, it could mean anchovies are like eating salty worms." She frowned. "Not that I've ever eaten a salty worm."

Darcy-copy mirrored her frown but, after a moment, nodded again.

"So nodding means yes?"

And again.

"Excellent. Although you need to trust me on the anchovies thing. Of course, what do I know, salty worms could make up a major part of your diet. Seriously, if you guys could talk, this could be so cool." The five aliens with Human faces seemed confused. The two blobby ones were trying not to look at her but their shapes had begun to subtly change – tucking in, swelling out. It was like watching aliens going through the physical bits of puberty. Darcy felt a little bad about that actually. She wouldn't wish Human puberty on anyone. Then Green Trimmings said something that sounded like _Sudoku_ and moved toward her. He froze when Darcy raised her gun and growled, "Now, I figure you're thinking, maybe we can take her without damaging the ship too badly. Maybe, we don't have to give up on..." Suddenly realizing that Darcy-copy was no longer looking at her face, Darcy glanced down to see that her weapon had begun to droop. "Holy shit! It's overloaded! It's going to blow!"

When she told this part later, it was going get big laughs, but, right now, all Darcy could think as the Hipsters and the Blobs ran around the control room running into each other was, _OMG, they're so young._ And yeah, not a great idea overlaying Human behaviours on aliens but the cobbled together look of the controls and the ease with which the other six drones had been destroyed suddenly made sense. 

These were not the people in power. They didn't want copies of Captain America to conquer their world. They were a rebellion or a resistance. Okay, they still couldn't have Captain America but the whole crazy kids and a desperate gamble thing made her a lot more sympathetic and...

Darcy-copy snatched the _weapon_ out of her hand and ripped off the foil. The thawed wieners dropped to the deck. Yellow Trimmings dove forward, covering them with his body.

Sighing, Darcy-copy poked him with the toe of her Doc-copy. He raised his head. She trilled. He looked embarrassed and stood.

Before he could back away, Darcy reached out and touched his arm. "You don't need Captain America," she said. "You have the heart of him..." She moved her hand to his chest. "...right here."

Yellow Trimmings looked down at her hand. 

Which was when Darcy realized he'd absorbed the wieners. She could see the outline in the puffy jacket. She moved her hand back, slowly, careful not to startle him. "And when I say, heart, I mean that metaphorically because I don't want to presume."

Darcy-copy snorted.

"Yeah, okay, fair cop. I'm all about presuming. I like to think of it as seeing pieces and recognizing the whole – I'm kick ass at jigsaw puzzles – but potato potahto, right?" She dragged both hands back through her hair. Watched Darcy-copy do the same. "The better the copy, the more of the original you get?"

Darcy-copy nodded.

"Okay, that's..."

And an alarm tried to stuff an aural icepick into her ear. All eight of them spun toward the screens.

"Oh shit. That's the helicarrier incoming. You do not want to engage with that, it'll blow you to bits then blow the bits out of the sky. They won't even let me up on it yet."

Yellow Trimmings made an inquiring noise. 

"Yeah, I know, totally bogus." 

Another alarm.

"And that looks like the quinjet. And that means as well as the might of SHIELD..." She decided to skip over the whole still patching things together after the Chitari thing. "...you will face Earth's mightiest heroes. Which, by the way, not propaganda."

Only Darcy-copy seemed to be paying attention so Darcy turned and spoke directly to her. To herself. Okay. Weird. "Look, your whole stealth thing is blown now." Sylvia had probably messaged Natasha. "They may no know where you are exactly, because clearly your cloaking kicks ass, but now they have a perimeter, they will find you. You've got to go. Now. But without me," she amended quickly. "If you take me, they'll never stop hunting you. They defeated a Chitari war fleet. Kicked it's ass so hard it never got out of Manhattan and then took the battle to them and blew up everything they had in reserve. You clearly watched shit go down on some sort of interstellar satellite signal tapping or you wouldn't know about Captain America, would you? But there's only seven of you, in a somewhat crappy ship. You have one chance. Boot me out. Take off and head back through a portal home as quickly as you can. If you're lucky, if you're really lucky, they won't crack your cloak in time." She took a deep breath and looked Darcy-copy in the eye. "I know it sucks, but right now, Earth is not in the mood to talk to aliens."

Darcy-copy bit her lower lip and Darcy recognized the move as one of her own. 

_See the pieces._ She urged silently. _Put them together. Realize I'm..._

She rolled as she hit the asphalt of the roof, stopped just before she slammed up against the cinder block edge, caught her breath, and stood slowly, muttering, "I didn't mean boot me out literally. Jeez, aliens..."

Which was when the blast of hot air hit her, forcing her back. One step. Two. Her heels and calves slammed into the edge. Arms windmilling, eyes squinted nearly shut against flying debris, she fought for balance.

And went over.

It was only a four story building. Darcy was pretty sure Hawkeye'd fallen further and survived. Hawkeye was only Human. She was Human. She could...

"I could kiss you!"

Iron Man levelled off close enough to the parked Buick his repulsors blistered the paint. "Appreciate the thought, but your boyfriend would blame me. And Pepper would blame me. I quite definitely would get the blame."

"For what?" Darcy demanded, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Corrupting a probationary agent."

"Dude, I was thinking a kiss on the cheek not a lip-lock with tongue."

"Then I don't actually appreciate the thought."

If her laugh was maybe a little hysterical, well, she'd just been captured by aliens and blown off a building. She figured she was due. "Where are you taking me?" The wind whipped her words away, even with her head tucked into the curve between the armor's shoulder and neck, but she figured Jarvis could hear her.

"The tower." And he could. "Cap was pretty clear about not setting you down in an unsecured area," Tony continued. Paused. "Yeah, she's fine. You're fine, right?"

"I'm fine." As they continued to gain altitude, she kept her gaze locked on Tony not the ground.

"Told you."

"Listen, the aliens are heading home and they're not really dangerous. Can we just let them leave?"

"Not _really_ dangerous?"

"They're a little dangerous. But mostly to themselves."

"You went off the roof."

"They probably didn't mean to do that."

"Probably? Not filling me with confidence here, kid. We nee... Jarvis has registered a hole in space opening over the Hudson. Yeah, exactly where they came through."

Without a com it was like listening to half a phone conversation. "Let them go."

"And you're basing this belief we should let them go, on what?"

"On the fact that I'm the only person who knows anything about them. Has had a conversation with them. Knows why they were here."

"And why were they here?"

"To kidnap and copy Captain America, but that's not important." The visor remained expressionless but Darcy swore she could see Tony's eyebrows go up. "Look, can Jarvis patch me through to Agent Coulson? Wait, sorry, my bad, of course he can. Iron Man, would you please ask Jarvis to patch me through to Agent Coulson."

Iron Man. Not Tony. This was official business. After a long moment... 

"Agent Lewis."

"Boss, remember that conversation we had last night about trust? If you have ever trusted me, trust me in this: the aliens are not a danger to Earth. Let them go home."

"Agent Lewis, by your own admission, they were here to kidnap and copy Captain America."

"And if they'd succeeded, I believe Captain America would have fought on their side while waiting for us to find him and bring him home."

Another long moment. Darcy knew from the weight of the silence – excluding the whole wind whistling past her ears and the roar of repulsors and the sound of New York passing below her – that Tony hadn't opened a private channel. That the Avengers and quite probably SHIELD command were listening in. 

Then the moment passed.

"Avengers, track them to the portal. And, as long as that is _all_ they are trying to do, allow them to leave."

"Yes, sir."

Steve's voice. No, Cap's voice. Darcy sighed hard enough she fogged Tony's armour. So near and yet so far. "Did Sylvia message Natasha," she asked as they approached the tower."

"Nope." He settled on the landing pad outside the penthouse and waited for her to find her land legs before taking off. Then he paused, hovering about three meters out. "There was a camera in the planter; you turned it back to face the room."

"Seriously?" To be fair, Steve had only said he'd taken care of it. He hadn't said he'd removed it.

"Why would I lie about bugging the capsicle's ficus?"

Why indeed, she allowed as he flew toward the portal and she turned toward the apartment. "Jarvis, doors open in a direct line to the nearest potty, please. I have _really_ got to pee."

 

***

"So let me make sure I have this straight..." Director Fury stared down at his hands, folded on the gleaming surface of his desk, then stared up at Darcy. "You believe that the aliens who wanted to kidnap and copy Captain America were young and involved in a rebellion. You further believe that they are on the side of the angels based on how little damage the city incurred and on the risk they took in making this attempt – based, in turn, on their reaction to danger and the quality of their equipment."

"And because Yellow Trimmings threw himself on the wieners. Not a euphemism," she added as the director's eye narrowed.

"I've read your report, Lewis, where you made the absence of euphemism quite clear." He drummed a fingertip against the desk. "Based on conclusions drawn from from a complete and total lack of hard evidence and your extensive experience as an agent of SHIELD..."

Darcy raised a brow.

"What, Lewis?"

"Uncalled for sarcasm, sir."

"I'll be the judge of that." 

"Yes, sir." 

He sighed. "Based on what you _believed_..."

Crankiest set of air quotes she'd ever seen.

"...and your extensive experience as an agent of SHIELD..."

Man, he was not going to let that go.

"... you felt you were qualified to decide that these particular aliens should be allowed to wander happily home. Is that correct?"

"No, sir." She straightened her shoulders. As a sign of respect. Not because she thought for one moment that Director Fury would be distracted by her boobs. Okay, maybe for one moment. They were great boobs, it was worth a shot. "Based on conclusions draw by actual interaction with the aliens and my _limited_ experience as an agent of SHIELD, I felt Agent Coulson should be given the information and that Agent Coulson should make the decision."

"You asked him to trust you. No, I'm sorry..." The director raised a hand. "You _told_ him to trust you."

"And he did." Darcy met a baleful one-eyed gaze. Agent Coulson had trusted her assessment of the situation. If Director Fury didn't, in turn, trust Agent Coulson's assessment of the situation then the entire agency would fall apart like a cheap suit. And Agent Coulson would never wear a cheap suit.

"Oh I'll be speaking to Agent Coulson," Fury muttered.

"Yes, sir." The conversation would involve alcohol. Lots of alcohol. Darcy was getting the hang of the whole subtext thing. 

"One final question." Both hands flat on the desk, he leaned forward. "Should I be concerned that one of the aliens went home as an exact copy of you?"

Darcy'd given that some thought over the last few hours since being dropped at the tower. She didn't think she knew enough about the inner workings of either SHIELD or the Avengers to be a danger. Nor was she positive that there'd ever been one on one transfer of information between the shifter and the shifted. Darcy-copy still hadn't been able to speak English even after the final pixilation. But the facial expressions had been hers – and Sylvia's – so clearly something transferred. A way of looking at the world? The essence of what it was to be Darcy Lewis?

"I wouldn't be entirely unconcerned," she admitted at last.

"Get the fuck out of my office, Lewis."

 

***

Standing by the elevator that would take her off the executive floor and back down to where the plebby people worked, Darcy silently acknowledged that the meeting with Director Fury had gone better than she'd expected with hardly any yelling and minimal profa...

"Good work, Agent Lewis."

Whirling around, heart pounding, she managed a weak, "Thank you, ma'am."

Assistant Director Hill nodded toward the elevator. "Your ride's here."

Stepping inside and jabbing at the button for the second floor, Darcy gave serious thought to asking Tony if it was possible to program the assistant director's electronic signature into a phone so it would buzz when she was close. They could call it Belling the Cat, sell the app to the junior agents, and make a fortune.

 

***

"I have to say, I understand why Director Fury wants us to live in the tower," Darcy declared, setting her turntable on the sideboard and opening the lid. "Aliens hiding out all undetected in Brooklyn totally proved that it's too dangerous for normal people – where normal is defined as not agents in a mostly secret, kick-ass government agency – to be around superheros and I'm not going to argue about Tony turning over the keys to a two bedroom plus office suite right down the hall from my sweetie. It's not like he hasn't got lots of other guest space and the bathroom in this place is bigger than my whole SHIELD apartment." 

Her stuff looked overwhelmed by the high end cream and white furnishings, but she could fix that. A couple of days free to hit the second hand shops and a chance to take advantage of a little super soldier muscle to haul shit home and she would make this space hers. 

"Pepper, Jane, Natasha, me... Given that the whole SHIELD-husbands thing takes Agent Coulson and Clint out of the equation, we've cut the whole superhero frat house vibe off at the knees." She pulled a navy blue and hot pink striped afghan out of a green plastic garbage bag – the director hadn't exactly given her time to pack – tossed it over the back of the enormous white velvet sofa and nodded approvingly at the pop of colour. Stupidly expensive bland, was still bland.

"And even though we could work here, because the tech is truly sweet and Agent Coulson worked the alien wrap-up from the tower, it's not like we actually live where we work. Which would be more than a little pathetic." The red button on the remote brought a huge flat screen TV down from the ceiling. And up again. Darcy snickered. "Screen goes up. Screen goes down. Remind me to work you up to the Simpsons – totally the best cultural commentary of the last twenty-five years although the older, creakier members of the collective will have to explain the earliest stuff." 

She'd expected a response to the old and creaky bit at least, but Steve kept staring out at the city. And yeah, it was a great view but she'd been monologing for what felt like hours with no response and she could probably bounce a Chevy off the tension in his shoulders.

"Steve? What's wrong? Is it the SHIELD-husbands tag? They know about it. Clint had t-shirts made. The boss won't wear his."

"You got captured."

Right. Given the debriefing and the moving, they hadn't really had a chance to talk. She crossed the room, bare feet silent on the plush carpet, until she was standing barely an arms length behind him. "Yeah, I did."

"It'll happen again." His voice was a low growl that lifted the hair off the back of her neck.

"Sucks, but yeah, probably. It seems to be part of the whole Darcy Lewis, Agent of Shield thing." A thing they were about to have an enormous fight about. She could feel the tension rising...

Steve made a noise Darcy couldn't interpret and turned. 

Oh. Wrong tension. 

It was sort of his Cap face and sort of not. The same intensity ratcheted up to eleven, but he stared at her with a need and desperation she was pretty sure the villain of the week never got to see. Darcy'd always hated the phrase "his eyes burned" – not only because Johnny Storm really was an ass – but Steve's eyes were throwing enough heat she felt an answering flush begin at her cheeks and spread in a searing wave over her body. 

"I am so tired of waiting for the right moment." His voice was rough, stroking against her skin like a cat tongue. "Tired of waiting and losing the chance to let the people I love know what they mean to me. What they do... What I want..." He swallowed. "Please, tell me you want it too."

She wet her lips, watched his gaze follow the movement, and said, "Yes."

The white velvet sofa was a lot more comfortable than it looked and was more than large enough for two adults even when one of them was of the oh my god shoulders to die for variety.

Whimpering, Darcy pulled at Steve's t-shirt until he stopped plundering her mouth, sat back, and threw it off. Warm, smooth skin over rippling muscle... 

"Wait!" Back arched, she grabbed the edge of her sweater, paused at her bra to hook her fingers under the elastic, and dragged them both over her head with ruthless efficiency. There'd be time for the whole sexy stripping thing later. When she shook her hair off her face, Steve was staring down at her, eyes wide, mouth slightly open...

She grabbed his biceps and tugged. "Hello! Tired of waiting! Remember!"

His eyes narrowed and the corners of his mouth turned up in what Darcy realized could only be considered a wicked grin.

Somehow, with a nipple hardening in the hot suction of his mouth and a nipple being rolled and tugged between his fingers, he still managed to get her jeans and underwear down and off. She wound her fingers in his hair and pulled until he looked up at her then she tucked a bare leg under his arm, braced her knee in his armpit and, in a move Natasha had taught her, levered his body up until she could reach his mouth with hers. Her breasts pressed against his chest, nipples throbbing, she devoured his mouth, his lips hot and swollen, his jeans rough against the inside of her thighs.

Unwilling to release him, she used her heels to help move his jeans down the long, lean line of his thighs. Then used her heels to stroke the round firm globes of his ass. Then, reluctantly, let him pull far enough away to...

"Darcy?"

She blinked and forced herself to look back at his face. "Sorry. I think I may have just orgasmed from visual stimulae." His skin gleamed under a fine sheen of sweat and she tried not to be distracted by a drop of moisture rolling off his clavicle, down through the scattering of golden hair, over the ridges of his abs to where the line of darker hair dipped... _Face, Darcy! Look at his face!_

"Darcy, I can't... I mean... You should have more..." 

He was trembling, she realized, from the effort of holding himself back. Sweet. But not necessary. "I'm counting pretty much every moment since I met you as foreplay so, really, I'm good to go." Stretching an arm up over the arm of the sofa, she managed to hook her backpack off the side table and drag it close enough for her to dig out her makeup case. 

Steve jerked as the condom hit him in the stomach.

"I don't want to pause for responsible conversation; wrap it up soldier!"

His lips twitched, he snickered, then he dove forward and caught her mouth again, kissing her as he laughed. As far as Darcy was concerned, laughing kisses were the best kind. And he got bonus points for multi-tasking, one hand working between them, his knuckles rubbing a teasing pressure between her legs. When they finally pulled apart to breath, his forehead resting on hers, she felt a nudge against her and, looking into his eyes, so close that they were her whole world, she wrapped her outside leg around his back, and growled, "Yes."

She thought the low, hungry sound he made as he pushed into her was the most amazing thing she'd ever heard and then she stopped thinking. Started moving with him. Pulling him impossibly closer. Dragging her fingernails across the silk over steel curves of his back. Crying out his name...

...and one or two other things that were probably blasphemy. And had _nothing_ to do with Thor.

Later -- and, in all honesty, not much later not that either of them were complaining -- when the condom had been disposed of and apologies had been delivered for the bite mark, already fading, Steve flipped them so Darcy could sprawl over his chest. She hooked the afghan with a toe and got it over her ass then lost interest in covering them further given the heat her muscular mattress was radiating. They were both sweaty enough she doubted the white velvet would ever be the same, but hey, nothing like sex stains to make a sofa seem homey.

"What are you thinking about?"

She snickered, and propped her chin on her crossed arms. "I don't think I should te..."

"Yo, Darcy, did you want..." 

Darcy turned her head enough to see Tony standing just inside the apartment. 

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. And announced as he left, "Jarvis, I would like it noted in the records, that, contrary to the odds being offered by every bookie in Vegas, I am not the one who debauched a national icon."

Darcy turned her attention back to Steve. His eyes were closed and a muscle jumped in his jaw. You can lock him out," he said, opening his eyes, "but you have to ask. Specifically. Jarvis, please disable Tony's override on the apartment lock unless emergency protocols are in place."

"I'm sorry, Captain Rogers, but as this is Agent Lewis' suite and emergency protocols are not in place, she must give the command."

"Consider it given, J."

"With pleasure, Agent Lewis."

She could feel Steve's heart beating. Strong. True. Thought of it being the beat she danced to and decided, here and now, she was good with that. "Steve..."

"For what it's worth, I made a thousand bucks betting on you."

The _I love you_ almost slipped out on the giggle. Yes. Fine. She giggled post-coital.

Tracing the curve of his jaw with one finger, she tried again. "Given what precipitated this... the timing of this," she added quickly when he frowned. "Were you planning to ask me to stop working for SHIELD?"

He raised his head off the arm of the sofa and stared at her, wide-eyed. "Do I look stupid?"

"No. You look..." She stretched until she could kiss the dimple on his chin. "...like a thousand bucks."

They lost the afghan during the wrestling match that followed and Darcy sighed as Steve spread his hands on her hips, fingers stroking the curve of her ass, thumbs stoking the soft skin at the edge of her belly, his strength gentled. 

"Seriously," he murmured against her shoulder, "there are things I might ask you for, but I'd never ask you to be less than you are. Or to give up something you loved. Or even liked. Or tolerated, I guess... I mean, I don't like beets but you wouldn't have to give them up for me and..."

Darcy nudged him with a knee and he shut-up. She couldn't see his face but he _felt_ grateful for the interruption. "Beets I can take or leave, but I love working for SHIELD. I mean what's not to love? The fringe benefits alone are... Oh yeah. Right there..."


End file.
